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UNUNITED STATES OF AMERICA.- S: 



FORD EXCHAN 



CONGREGATIONALISM, 



AND *£± 

CHURCH-ACTION: 



WITH THE 



iJPrinrioka of (Eljristtan Union, tit. 

/ 

BY JOHN KEEP, 

PASTOR OF A CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN HARTFORD, 
TRUMBULL CO., OHIO. 



NEW YORK : 

S. W. BENEDICT & CO. 

1845. 









V 



^ 



- 



M 



46983 



S. W. BENEDICT & CO., PRINTERS, 
16 Spruce Street, N. Y. 




CONTENTS. 

Notice to the Reader, - - -"-'.'*- -4 
Principles, -------- 5 

Positions denned, - - 20 

Congregationalism, 24 

Church-membership, - ' - - - 25 

Who ordains, 30 

Councils, -37 

Plan of Union, ------ 44 

Church property, 49 

Schism, - - 52 

Christian Union, 54 

Christian character, 58 

Never entire agreement, 59 

Schismatics, - 64 

Oberlin views, 67 

Light sought, 70 

Facts and expostulation, - - - - - 71 

Oberlin no intrusion, 75 

Extraordinary position, - - 76 

Many have the spirit and aims of Oberlin, - 77 

Divisions deprecated, 79 

Holy living, 82 

Attitude of Presbyteries, &c, - - - 83 

Rev. H. Belden restored, 84 

Why piety is low, 104 

The Church has light, - - - - 106 

Duty neglected, - - - ' - - - 10& 

Church and the State, 112 

False positions, - - - - - - 114 

Religious bodies and Slavery, - - 117 

Mutual confidence, 121 

Complaint answered, - - - - 123 

Benefits of Congregationalism, - - - 127 

Asleep over danger, 137 

We are not a free people, - 140 

Civilians neglect duty, 141 

Cling to the Constitution, - 142 

Teach liberty to the young, - - - - - 143 



TO THE READER. 

I. Will this book be read ? 

1. It is short, and suited to the present period. 

2. It presents principles which are the life of civil and re- 
ligious liberty, the knowledge of which, in the community, 
is sadly deficient : — fundamental thoughts which must be- 
come paramount, at this juncture, for the prosperity of the 
Church and country; and facts, showing the true position of 
men and things. 

3. It is intended to be a word in season, in reference to the 
present exigencies of the Church and Nation : — encourage- 
ment to those who would see the Church and the State just 
and mighty, each in its own destined sphere, and both on the 
rock of New Testament Truth : of counsel to those who 
sustain ecclesiastical domination in any form, sacrifice prin- 
ciple to party, and smother freedom of speech. 

II. This book is a compilation rather than a systematic 
treatise, — a book of statements rather than of discussion. 
The language of others is often used, and occasionally a 
paragraph ; — this admission is their credit, instead of the 
usual marks of quotation. 

The Ministry and the Church are in a transition state. 
Philanthropy and Benevolence plead that the new state may 
be what Christ shall approve — and what the world needs. 

III. What is said of Oberlin is designed to bespeak for 
truth a hearing ; and for its advocates common justice and 
courtesy. 



CHAPTER I. 
PRINCIPLES TO BE STUDIED, 

SEC. I.— MORALS. 

1. What ought to be done, can be done. 

2. Demand only what is right : and in duty to God, sub* 
mit to nothing which is wrong. 

3. A generation of boasters is never a generation of 
thinkers, still less of doers. 

4. Moral Reform always begins with those least need- 
ing it. 

5. Whatever goes to deny moral obligation and to con- 
found moral distinctions, is of fatal bearing upon character 
and proves an effectual check upon the reformation. 

6. To reform in the real and just sense is to restore 
original order, — to bring man back to his primitive model, 
— to induce him to become what his Maker intended 
him to be, and to act in conformity with the great principles 
or laws upon which his moral constitution was framed : 
and that the reform may be genuine, and the Reformer re- 
tain his hold on the public mind, he must admit of no com- 
promise ; and discard the plea that the least of two evils is 
to be chosen, and that the end sanctifies the means. 

7. Reformations live only by aggressive and onward 
movements. 

8. A say and do-nothing philanthropy has too long de- 
ceived the hopes and mocked the miseries of men. 

9. Men will not always stultify themselves by pretending 
to believe and disbelieve the same thing in the same breath. 

10. To hold the doctrine of human rights, or the funda- 
mental principles of justice in the abstract, and not to carry 
them out in practice, is, in fact, to apostatize from them. 

2 



6 MORALS. 

1 1 . We are not permitted to seek the good even of the 
Universe at the expense of any right of any being in it. 
Rather than do this, evea Jehovah would take down the 
framework of the Kingdoms he has created, and retire as 
incompetent to the station he occupies. 

12. Take away a man's right to worship, ivhere, and under 
what religious teaching he thinks proper, and you take 
away his right to worship according to the dictates of his 
own conscience. 

13. To deny human rights from considerations of State 
policy, and to enforce this denial by the bayonet, is but one 
step higher in the scale of despotism, than when such de- 
nial is enforced by Church censure, founded on supposed 
but mistaken principles of Church organization. 

14. Whatever is in accordance with and demanded by the 
nature and relations of moral beings is obligatory on them — 
is moral law, and no power in the universe can set it aside. 

15. Every human right is indestructible : you may in- 
fringe it, you may bruise and mangle it, but there it is, in 
frowns or in smiles, weeping tears of joy or sorrow, a 
deathless witness against the wrong-doer. 

16. To do right is the highest possible expediency. 

17. That which is contrary to reason and natural justice 
never was and never can be law ; and no enactment what- 
ever, which does not declare and apply the law of God, is 
morally obligatory. 

18. To will right, to do right, for its own sake, is be- 
nevolence, is religion, is Christianity. 

19. No Christian community which tolerates flagrant 
crimes can maintain a high moral standard. 

20. Conscience is that power of the mind that affirms 
and enforces moral obligation : as a judge, it smiles upon 
obedience, and frowns upon disobedience. 

21. All human events move in revolving circles, each 
successive age but reproducing aspects of the past ; and that 
age which best sustains inalienable rights, and best evolves 
the changeless principles of morality, bears most of the image 
of Divinity. 

22. But revolving cycles, though similar, are not identi- 
cal Each has, in itself, some characteristics of a peculiar 



RELIGION. 7 

nature, and to th/it extent part of its characteristics may ter- 
minate in its own period, part may revive and expand into 
the new revolving movement. 

23. When the light shines upon any moral question, to 
plead ignorance of your duty is to proclaim your purpose to 
do wrong. 

24. The gospel demands that we be not partakers of 
others' sins — that we abstain from the appearance of evil — * 
that the thoughts and desires be pure — the total abstinence 
from all that is wrong, and is therefore a system of the most 
absolute and perfect reformation, and the Saviour Himself 
was a Reformer without even the semblance of compromise. 

SEC. II. — RELIGION. 

25. He that would work for man, must also work for 
God, in his strength, and in use of the means he has ap- 
pointed. 

26. The invasion of human lights is an assault upon 
human salvation. The oppressor is a destroyer : and a 
conversion which leaves men at variance with the funda- 
mental principles of a sound morality, leaves them un- 
saved. 

27. To divorce the positive from the moral in religion is 
to destroy both. 

28. Hearts dead to the claims of man, cannot be alive to 
the commands of God : and religion cannot flourish on the 
ground where humanity withers. 

29. What God determines to accomplish, He will see that 
in some form, and at some time, and by somebody, it shall 
be done— all reformations from evil are of his instiga- 
tion and those who engage in them are on the Lord's side. 

30. The religion of Christ assumes as an essential ele- 
ment the doctrine of individual responsibility, and inalien- 
able rights, upon which the whole framework of moral law 
and human accountability is erected. 

31. Really to admit the claims of religion anywhere, is to 
admit them everywhere. 

32. The practical Christianity of Christendom is most de- 
plorably below the Bible standard, inasmuch as the current 



8 THE CHURCH. 

religion even of the Protestant and dissenting sects is, to a 
great extent, a religion of outward observances, of constitu- 
tional arrangements — of idolized rituals. 

33. The commands of God to his people cover the whole 
ground of their civil and political duties, and clearly teach, 
that to set up the workers of iniquity and elevate oppressors 
to places of power, is the climax of apostasy and rebellion. 

34. Religion and morality are inseparable, and the attempt 
to dissever them in any reformatory movements, is to err 
fatally in the start, and to ensure defeat in the result. 

35. A revival of religion is no farther genuine than it ex- 
tends its influence to overcome the sins of the community. 

36. Christianity requires mankind to unite in one common 
brotherhood, under one common Lord; impresses the compre- 
hensive fact of man's equality with man, and teaches him 
his own equality with his own mother's children. 

37. The religion we propagate abroad cannot be expected 
to be more pure than that which is maintained at home. 

38. Better that a corrupt Christianity were buried out of 
sight, than that it should continue to stalk abroad, and utter 
meaningless incantations and idle bravados, as it always 
does, after the vital principle is extinct ; and when, in the 
midst of its vain formalities, it confesses its own want of 
courage to look gigantic crimes in the face. 

39. The religion of no people can rise higher than the 
theology upon which it is founded. A false philosophy 
cannot fail to produce a false theology. A dead-letter 
theology always involves a low standard of ethics, and the 
corruption of the public morals is a matter of course. 

40. The continuance of civil liberty depends upon the 
maintenance of pure religion. Both civil liberty and reli- 
gion involve human rights : therefore human rights should 
be made a test question in religion. 

SEC. III. — THE CHURCH. 

41. The people of God in all ages, and especially those 
composing the Church of the New Covenant, are appointed 
of God to be a perpetual band of Reformers, to contend 
without compromise against sin in all its forms, to begin the 
work, and always to move in the advance. 



THE CHURCH. 9 

42. It is absurd to claim a higher degree of purity in the 
State, than we claim in the Church — to expect that public 
men in civil life will cease from crime when they find coun- 
tenance among professed Christians, and their known sins 
go unrebuked. 

43. Reforms linger from the want of purity in those en- 
gaged in them, rather than from the want of numbers. 

44. When heretics begin to teach orthodoxy, it is not the 
time for the orthodox to deride their own faith by refusing to 
follow the right teaching, although coming from those deem- 
ed unsound in the faith. 

45. Every Church is anti-christian whose practice denies 
the fundamental principles of justice, and is not conformed 
to the known example of Christ, and defends sentiments 
which encourage men in sin. To support an anti-christian 
Church is to support the most effective enemy of God and 
his law — of Christ and his gospel. 

46. The question which divides those who oppose and 
those who countenance oppression, is a fundamental ques- 
tion of morality, and the church which practically stands on 
the wrong side of such a question is, in this respect, an anti- 
christian church. 

47. A sound morality is an essential ingredient in the 
character of a Christian. The man who is guilty of theft, 
robbery, kidnapping, concubinage, and the withholding from 
the hireling his wages, lacks this ingredient ; and by these 
tests it may be ascertained how far the ministry and the 
church are or are not anti-christian. 

48. To steal — to justify theft in others — to apologise for 
it — to keep silence in view of it, through fear of endanger- 
ing other great interests, or through fear of making disturb- 
ance in the church or the neighborhood — are all acknow- 
ledged sins, and mark a man. as unworthy the confidence of 
the community, or membership in a Christian church, or 
good standing in the Christian ministry. In the same cate- 
gory, yet vastly more guilty, are reckoned, by the common 
sense of mankind, the stealers of men, women, and children, 
— their defenders, apologists, and silent supporters. 

49. A true church of Christ is subject to His rules, and 
not to mere human compacts : to membership in it, evidence 

2* 



10 THE CHURCH. 

of Christian character is necessary, and the loss of this evi- 
dence is the only forfeiture of church privileges. 

50. Our blindness will not prevent unscriptural church 
organizations from falling, nor our supineness shelter us from 
being buried under their ruins. 

51. We cannot carry the legislation of the country to a 
higher degree in morals than what is indicated by the prac- 
tice of the church ; and so far as this practice connives at 
injustice, the CHURCH lies directly across the pathway of 
all attempts to reform the legislation of the country. 

52. In the great work of doing good, or which is the 
same, in building up the true church of Christ, or which is 
still the same, in the work of a genuine reform, those whose 
principles and aims are coincident, who cherish the same 
temper and breathe the same spirit, should be united in their 
labors, and never be prevented from a sweet and efficient co- 
operation, by preferences for any outward forms or modes, or 
discrepancies on points in mental philosophy ; and this on 
the principle that you should never raise the formalities of 
religion to a level with the spiritualities of religion ; a prin- 
ciple on which a union of Christians universally might be 
secured. 

53. There are certain indications in the churches, which 
the world never misunderstands, and by which they are 
never misled. One class of them is seen when churches 
and professed Christians are sticklers for orthodoxy and at 
the same time defenders of oppression ; when they connect 
their skill in hunting heresy with their ingenuity in evading 
the force of moral truth, and denounce as the worst of here- 
sies the vindication of human rights ; when, to ward off" the 
appeals of Christian reformers, they contradict in detail all the 
fundamental doctrines of their own creed. Such indications 
destroy confidence in the religious integrity of such churches, 
and beget disgust with the system of doctrines they hold and 
teach ; and many wakeful and discerning minds in our coun- 
try are thus induced to regard and to treat evangelical doc- 
trine with contempt. But it is a hasty conclusion, that the 
leading tenets of a church are worthless or false because 
error and corruption are found in it. 

54. The vices are a sisterhood: the blow which falls 



THE CHURCH. 11 

effectually upon any one, seriously affects the whole. And 
while a division of labor among reformers is needful , the 
true philosophy of reform, as confirmed by facts, teaches 
that every department must be sustained, and that no one 
can be carried to a triumph while the others are permitted to 
lag. 

55. When new things are proposed, there should be a 
just discrimination. Churches may be reformed without 
being disorganized, and innovations are not, of course, re- 
forms. 

56. In the professing Church there is a large class who 
have never been born again, who have no spiritual discern- 
ment, whose sympathies are with the world and not with 
Christ and his cause. Hence, what is meat to one is poison 
to another. Most, if not all the local churches are heart- 
divided, and present the repel iant interests of converted and 
unconverted minds. A preacher, a lecturer^ or a reformer, 
is not therefore to be rejected because his doctrines produce 
divisions in such churches. But the legitimate and only 
correct inference is, that his labors are needed to bring kin- 
dred spirits to cluster together according to the opposite at- 
tractions of godliness and impiety : the truly spiritual to 
unite their energies, and those who sympathize with the 
world to go to their own ; that thus the Church may be 
purified. 

57. When God rises to judgment, the churches that keep 
back the truth must drink a double portion, and drain the 
cup of trembling to the last dregs. 

58. Blame incurred by the criminal acts of a Society, rests 
upon the individual who continues to give it his support. 
Christians do not lose their individual responsibility by being 
associated in churches ; and the question whether a man 
shall be made a chattel, need not perplex a Christian church 
many weeks. 

59. Before a church can become a champion for the free- 
dom of the world, she must herself learn to stand fast in the 
liberty wherewith Christ maketh His people free, 

60. When Christians come to rely less on outward ob- 
servances, and more upon Christian character — les^ on sacri- 
fices, and more on mercy — less on rituals, and more on 



12 THE CHURCH. 

integrity and doing the will of God, they will turn with 
loathing from many things now said and done in the 
churches. 

61. Christian or church union, is the union of all with 
each, and each with Christ. It is the fellowship of conge- 
nial souls united of choice and of necessity, by the fellow- 
ship of all and of each with the TRUE and the right, with 
the ever truthful and righteous ONE. The proper cognomen 
of this union is, the union of Christians. 

62. Satan seldom sets up a church of his own where 
Christians will allow him a place in the Church of Christ : 
he seldom sets up an heretical church, so long as he can 
govern the nominally orthodox ; and the ominous cry of 
Church and State union will be hushed, when he can shut 
Christ and his poor from most of the so-called Evangelical 
pulpits in the land. 

63. The churches in this country are in a signally critical 
condition. They must inevitably experience great changes. 
They cannot always compromise. Correct and noble in 
their principle they generally are, and, as churches, sadly 
recreant in practice. They will be compelled to come out 
and act up to their faith, or to abjure it. The encroachments 
of the enemy will drive them from their conservatism, or 
their fancied neutral ground. If they do not in fact sympa- 
thize with the oppressed against the wrong-doer, they must 
give up all pretensions of an honest, consistent regard for the 
distinguishing tenets of an evangelical faith. 

64. To the extent in which churches are pure and spiritual 
will they be able to agree in labor and in practice. Where 
this purity does not exist, and Christians raise the formalities 
above the spiritualities of religion, any agreement among 
churches will be a deceitful truce, or an armed armistice. 

65. Agitation is unavoidable ; the certain process, and the 
only means of a reform. Nehemiah resorted to this. By 
enlightening the masses, he formed a correct public senti- 
ment against the nobles and the rulers and the priesthood, in 
their oppressions, and they were obliged to yield to the 
reformats i carried to its triumph by the popular voice. 
And all true Christian churches, in the midst of agitations, 
and to a. iy their fears, should tike for their motto and 



THE MINISTRY. 13 

watchword, " Trust not in princes, nor in the sons of men,'* 
and the divine counterpart, " Trust in the Lord, and stay : 
yourselves upon your God." 

SEC. IV. — THE MINISTRY. 

66. The Ministry is an appointed agency of God for the 
good of man : the Ministers of the Gospel are Christ's mes- 
sengers to teach men their high duties to Him and to each 
other, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance 
to the captive, and to use the ordinances of the Gospel as 
the appointed modes of expressing and affirming our fealty 
to our common Father, and our fraternal regards for all his 
children. 

67. The Church, to be spiritually revived, and that she 
may evangelize the world, must have a spiritually-baptized 
ministry, who can and who wilJ unfold the connection be- 
tween Christian Theology and Christian Ethics, and give us 
their creeds in their lives, and who will fearlessly take the 
Bible position that Christians can have no fellowship with 
the unfruitful works of darkness. 

68. .Religious Teachers in the Church should occupy the 
foreground in all moral reformations. 

69. To separate the active energies of the Church and of 
the Ministry from moral and religious reforms, is a con- 
servatism which betrays religion with a kiss ; and when, in 
the progress of reform,, its advocates melt away and retreat, 
it augurs ill respecting the position occupied by the leading 
influences in the Church. 

70. It is in vain to look for stable and steady efforts for a 
reformation in public morals, from a feverish, remittant, pe- 
riodical religion ; or under the influence of a ministry trained 
in a school of worldly expediency, whose disciples will not 
serve God unless they can decypher on the interest board 
what good it will do. 

71. The elevation of the poor and the oppressed is a prime 
and blessed feature of the gospel of Jesus Christ — Himself 
the friend of man, the tender sympathizer with human w t o, 
lifting his voice in tones of the kindest compassion amid 
the sighs and plaints and groans of the multitude : and the 



14 THE MINISTRY. 

day hastens in which the claims of a Church and ministry 
that do not plead openly the cause of these poor, enslaved, 
will be rejected. 

72. Twelve years faithful and extended discussion of the 
doctrine of human rights, and the fundamental principles of 
morality and religion, have failed to induce the leading 
Theological Seminaries in the United States to take open 
ground in opposition to the system of American slavery; 
and on these points they seem to be receding farther into 
darkness. Let this excite the thinking to exclaim, if the 
light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness ; 
and certain prominent influences to understand that, as in 
the days of Luther, an under current may effect a change 
in public sentiment of which men who are at the helm are 
not apprised. 

73. When in Conventions of ministers, the strongest feel- 
ings are enlisted against what they regard as some form of 
heresy, and their deepest emotions excited at the prospect of 
denominational extension, while in fellowship with gross 
practical enormities, the times are ominous, especially in 
connection with the facts that there are two hundred 
thousand communicants to whom the Churches cannot give 
the Bible ; that they dare not petition the civil government, 
to which they give character ; for permission to teach their 
own crushed members to read the gospel, nor even remon- 
strate against the chattelizing of members of their own 
body ; that they may not proclaim the seventh command- 
ment, nor explain the eighth ; that they cannot prevent min- 
isters and laity from robbing, buying and selling their own 
Christian brethren, nor practically carry out their avowed 
creed from fear of popular odium: in view of all which, the 
verdict is unavoidable, that ecclesiastical organizations are 
imbecile and losing their influence over the community ; a 
verdict which must be heard and felt. 

74. Let none be surprised at strange combinations and in- 
congruous connections among ecclesiastics. When ap- 
parent antipodes, both in politics and in professed theological 
sentiments, find it necessary to combine their forces in order 
to resist the searching application of Divine truth, the fact 
shows that Satan is preparing to fight his last battles. 



GOVERNMENT 15 

75. The sentiment that ministers should not meddle with 
politics, and that to plead for the oppressed is to interfere 
with politics, if permitted to guide and control, would put it 
beyond their power to rebuke any sin which has the sanc- 
tion of the State, and would release them from their respon- 
sibilities to teach the people their high and solemn duties in 
the choice of their rulers. 

76. A tyrannical government, and all oppression under 
the forms of law, are invariably connected with a corrupt 
religion ; or the perversion of the true religion by the faith- 
less co-operation and betrayal of its professed friends and 
teachers. 

77. Adhesion to an ungodly ministry inevitably drags down 
to its own level the flock : and it has become a question of 
ineffable interest, whether the people of this land have vir- 
tue enough to separate themselves from all religious teach- 
ers, who do not honestly and continuously enlist in the 
cause of universal freedom. 

78. When a minister finds that the praying and most 
spiritual portion of his Church are in advance of him in the 
divine life, he should promptly come up and lead them on 
or cease to be their teacher. 

79. In no country, nor among any people, can either 
liberty or despotism prevail without the co-operation of the 
religious teachers. 

SEC. V. — GOVERNMENT. 

80. The Lord Jesus Christ has either instituted church 
government, or he has not : if he has not, it can be shown ; 
if he has, we can ascertain w^ith precision what it is, .and we 
have no right to substitute the inventions of men for his 
institutions, 

81. Authority in the Church is given for edification and 
not for destruction — not to sustain a system of policy which 
shall minister to the pride of any class of men, nor to form 
a body with separate interests fiom the laity, but for the 
purity, instruction and happiness of the whole body. 

82. There must be freedom in the Church, before there 
can be freedom in the State, for the whole question of human 



16 RELIGION AND POLITICS. 

liberty, political and religious, is involved in the question of 
Church government. No people enjoy a greater degree of 
religious liberty than is permitted by their church polity : 
and civil and political liberty springs only from pure Christi- 
anity. No people will long maintain a higher or a purer 
liberty in the State than exists in the Church-arrangements 
of their current religion. 

83. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom anywhere 
and everywhere. Anti- republican church government is a 
dangerous element in a Republican civil government. 

84. All church authority, according to the 18th of Mat- 
thew, exists and resides with the assembled brotherhood in 
the local ghurch ; and if her powers are transferred to a 
select few, the members can have very little influence in 
church affairs. 

85. When things not deemed essential to Christian char- 
acter are made essential to church membership, Christian 
liberty as well as Christian unity is violated. 

86. In a Republican government, it is the business and 
the duty of the people at the ballot-box, to make it conform 
to its own fundamental principles. 

SEC. VI. — RELIGION AND POLITICS. 

87. Christians are under religious bonds to sustain civil 
governments on the great principles of moral law ; and their 
only correct and consistent course on this subject is to think 
right, to pray right, to preach right, and to Vote right, in 
support of equal and exact justice to all classes and condi- 
tions of men, irrespective of color or caste, discarding the 
legislation which raises questions of policy above questions 
of right, and carrying the pure strict principles of morality 
into all their political actions. 

88. Moral questions have to a great extent a political 
bearing, and all political questions have a moral bearing. 

89. Political relations are subject to the same moral 
tests with other relations. The religion of every nation 
gives shape and character to its political institutions, and 
they become what its current religion makes them ; and to 
maintain that religion has nothing to do with politics, is vir- 



RELIGION AND POLITICS. 17 

tually to declare that integrity has nothing to do with your 
own character. 

90. A large portion of the Bible is occupied with politics, 
and the religious character of a people is tested by their po- 
litical acts ; and when you say that politics have nothing to 
do with religion, you aver that a political man is not bound 
to do right, and that integrity has nothing to do with legisla- 
tion. 

91. Your politics are wrong, of course, if the faithful pre- 
sentation of the principles of righteousness cross your polit- 
ical path ; and to refuse in this case to change your course, 
is the practical avowal that you place expediency above 
right. 

92. The Divine Law requires love ; and nothing is Law, 
either human or divine, that is inconsistent with universal 
benevolence. And the man who breathes the true Christian 
spirit, will feel a deep interest in the affairs of human gov- 
ernments, and to a greater or less extent bear a part in them : 
not, indeed, from mere selfish or party purposes, but to pro- 
mote the public welfare, and to fulfil the political duties re- 
quired of every good man, at the ballot-box, and in every 
other relation where his acts and opinions will further the 
choice of good rulers, and secure for the country a righteous 
legislation. 

93. In the first ages of Christianity the relation and the 
attitude of the civil government and the Church were that of 
the persecutor and the persecuted. 

The next stage was that in which persecution ceased, and 
the friendly relation of granting and receiving protection ex- 
isted between the State and the Church. 

In the next stage Christianity became anti- christian, raised 
a supreme head, aimed to control the civil magistrate even in 
civil matters, and the struggle resulted in the establishment 
of a complete spiritual and civil despotism. 

The overthrow of this revolting despotism was com- 
menced by the Reformation, but the work was not perfected. 

In the succeeding ages, men have been slow to receive the 
truth on the subject of civil and religious liberty ; and so late 
as the middle of the 19th century, the alphabet on this sub- 
ject is yet to be studied by leading influences in Christen- 
3 



18 



SECTARIANISM, 



dom, and a vigilance that sleeps not is needed to keep back 
the triumphs of both civil and ecclesiastical domination. 

The true and just theory is, that the Civil Government, 
uncontrolled, manage the civil concerns of the State ; but in 
accordance with the inalienable rights of man and the change- 
less principles of morality, securing to all classes under it 
personal protection, the rights of conscience, and the right of 
private judgment : the Church uncontrolled regulating her 
own concerns in accordance with the same principles, asking 
nothing of the State but protection, and demanding nothing 
of the State but that its legislation shall accord with the 
principles of righteousness. This leaves Religion untram- 
melled : the Church confined to her own sphere, and the 
State acting only within its own limits. 

The Ministers of State, 01 civil rulers, will, on this theory, 
carefully and conscientiously apply the principles of the 
Divine government to the civil and political interests of hu- 
man society ; and the Ministers of Religion will present 
Bible counsel respecting the civil and political duties of the 
people, and act as the faithful reprovers of iniquity and evil 
doers. 

94. Political action, political preaching and praying, and 
political voting, would never have come into bad odor if 

- Christians and Ministers of the Gospel had not joined with 
the wicked in putting vile men into civil office, and sustained 
oppressive legislation ; and for them to refrain from political 
action because politics are corrupt, is to hand over the ad- 
ministration of the affairs of State to the devil, — instead of 
which, their duty is to reform, to proclaim Bible truth, and 
to sustain the legislation which the Bible approves. 

SEC. VII. — SECTARIANISM. 

95. There is nothing so high or so holy which the 
touch of sectarianism will not taint and transmute into its 
own debased image. 

96. It is the peculiarity of sectarianism to substitute the 
profession for the practice : hence it falls, when the Church 
insists upon practice, or a fair Christian character, as a test 
of membership ; for such a test would eventually unite all 



SLAVERY. 19 

Christians in one harmonious co-operation, and throw off to 
the world those who are moved hy worldly affinities. 

97. Conservatives of all sects have stronger affinities with 
each other than they have with the reformers of their own 
sect. 

SEC. VIII. — SLAVERY. 

98. To find access to the mercy seat, men must duly re- 
gard the claims of the poor and needy, and take part with 
the weak against the strong — with the oppressed against the 
oppressor. 

99. The liberties of a people can be preserved only by the 
conviction that they are the gift of God, and not to be vio- 
lated but with his wrath : a conviction which is the only 
adequate safeguard of freedom, and the destroyer of despot- 
ism. 

100. All who refuse active succor to the poor, will be 
rejected by the Saviour, who regards the neglect of such as 
the neglect of himself. 

101. Human policy never fixes one end of a chain around 
the ankle of a slave, but Divine Justice livets the other end 
around the neck of his tyrant. 

102. The Churches in the United States could not have 
been seduced into so close an alliance with Slavery, had they 
known no ecclesiastical connection but the local church. 

103. Men who will elevate property above humanity — 
matter above Spirit — will sacrifice human life on the altar 
of property. 

104. The doctrines of modern abolition are the commonly 
received doctrines of orthodox Christianity brought to bear 
upon the specific sin of slave-holding. 

105. There is a war of extermination now going on be- 
tween American Slavery and American Christianity, and one 
or the other must eventually fall. 

106. At the present period, and especially in this country 
among professed Christians, the most conspicuous and 
searching test question is connected with the sin of despot- 
ism, civil and ecclesiastical, the denial of human rights, and 
particularly the support of the chattel principle. 



20 SLAVERY. 

107. The overthrow of civil and ecclesiastical despotisms 
is undoubtedly the grand characteristic enterprise of the pre- 
sent and the next coming age. The enterprise will succeed ; 
and those now in active life should go in advance of the 
past. 

108. A Constitution which guarantees to all the States 
under it a Republican form of government cannot, without 
self-immolation, be tortured into an oligarchical, slave- 
holding despotism. 

109. A State authorizing one portion of the people to 
own, or to hold as slaves another portion of the people, is, 
both in theory and practice, destitute of all claim to a Re- 
publican form of government. 

110. To say that Slavery does or can derive power from 
the United States Constitution, to encroach on the inalien- 
able rights of any person, under any circumstances, is to 
impeach the integrity of the framers of it — to accuse them of 
practising the deepest hypocrisy in the definition they gave, 
of the doctrine of human rights, and of a republican form of 
government, and to say that the Constitution itself is a bur- 
lesque upon liberty, and a gross imposition upon mankind. 

111. Civil liberty and religious toleration are citadels, not 
of course impregnable, but not easily to be reduced. All 
who value them should unite in their defence ; for the loss 
of them to one class of citizens, or to one church, tends to 
the loss of them to all. 

112. The general aspect of the world indicates universal 
preparation for great events : and the rising energies of the 
thinking portions of Christendom, seem to wait for the abo- 
lition of slavery in this Republic. 

113. The revolution of the present age is prominently one 
of thought, of opinion, of sentiment ; a revolution in which 
existing systems and usages are either wholly supplanted, 
or are made to assume entirely new forms. The secret and 
the cause of all these movements are the action of great 
fundamental principles, the ideas of the right, the true, and 
the good, that are heaving the elements of society with the 
power of an earthquake, and in the language of inspiration, 
figuratively applied, shaking not the earth only, but also 
heaven. 



CHAPTER II. 

POSITIONS DEFINED. 

The government of God is the application and enforce- 
ment of the principles of justice, or of moral law, to the cir- 
cumstances and necessities of all the moral beings under it. 
It is perfect, since it accords everywhere and at all points 
with existing moral relations, and sustains the personal 
rights of all, the just claims of the most degraded slave as 
those of an angel. 

All legitimate human governments are a part of the moral 
government of God ; and consist in the application and en- 
forcement of the principles of the Divine government, or of 
moral law, to the wants and necessities of mankind, or to 
the exigencies of human society. Their legitimacy is tested 
by the question, is the legislation in accordance with the 
principles of natural justice, securing the individual rights 
of all and every portion of citizens under it. An affirmative 
answer shows the obligation of all persons holding any con- 
nection with them to be quiet and obedient. A negative 
answer renders it the duty of every subject of such govern- 
ments, to use all lawful and proper means for such a change 
as shall effect a righteous legislation. 

Religion and morality are constituent elements in all gov- 
ernments. A perfect government has a perfect morality for 
its basis. An imperfect government is based upon an im- 
perfect morality. As human governments are the arrange- 
ments of men, their religious views and sentiments will be 
found in the texture of their laws, and religion and govern- 
ment everywhere, are inseparable. 

The same class of moral prin iples is to be applied to 
governments of every name and kind, designed for moral 
beings. Men associated for State purposes, have no right 
to leave out these principles in their arrangements, or to 
contravene them in their politics. When men associate for 
3* 



22 POSITIONS DEFINED. 

religious purposes,these pam principles must be interwoven 
with all their conventional and associated regulations, or 
they assume the attitude of enemies both of God and man. 

Religious men and political men ; men in the civil depart- 
ment and men in the church, the State and the Church, are 
equally bound, and on the same common basis which sup- 
ports the throne of God, to seek and to secure the highest 
and the best good of the whole community, and of every 
individual in it. 

The Lord Jesus Christ has given no laws for the govern- 
ment of his Church, differing from the laws for the govern- 
ment of the State. All the power of church government 
lies in the public sentiment of the brotherhood properly ex- 
pressed. Of course all legitimate church government is in 
favor of justice and universal liberty, and the efficient hand- 
maid of all righteous civil governments, and asks no mere 
of the State than simply protection in personal rights, and 
in the quiet expression of opinions. 

A Church is an association or company of professed be- 
lievers in the gospel of Jesus Christ, united for the worship 
of God, and the enjoyment of Christian ordinances. 

It is the generally received opinion that no particular form 
of church government is prescribed in the New Testament. 
But the principle and the fact are both given in the 18th of 
Matthew, and in the 5th chapter of Paul's first Epistle to the 
Corinthians, viz. : — the assembled brotherhood are the 
authorized and competent triers of such offenders as exist in 
the Church. 

Thinking men should think before they quietly acquiesce 
in a departure from the positive injunctions of Christ and 
Paul : and before they consent to the introduction of an ele- 
ment into ecclesiastical government which, in the civil gov- 
ernment, would be hostile to liberty. 

As a matter of fact, mankind have professed to assume 
forms of government, both in the Church and in the State 
in accordance with the degrees of virtue and intelligence 
among the people. But this fact does not prove that God 
has given these different forms, although he has permitted 
them to exist. It ever has been the duty of the people, in 
every age and in every stage of society, to adopt a govern- 
ment, both religious and political, which shall apply and 



POSITIONS DEFINED. 23 

enforce the given principles of moral law to the^xigencies of 
the community. 

The form of government which perfectly accords with the 
principles of law which God proclaims, he approves; and 
this is the only form which he has given : all others so far 
as they deviate from his revealed will, are usurpation. 

Deeply fraught with evils is the sentiment that there is 
one class of rules for the State, and another class for the 
Church, one for the politician) and another for the Christian ; 
that when a man goes to the ballot-box, or puts on the robes 
of office, he is released from that strict moral responsibility 
which he is bound to regard when he goes to the house of 
God for worship, or joins in the communion services at the 
Lord's table. 

You may know whether any particular form of church 
government is given of God when you know that it ac- 
cords with, or violates the inalienable rights of those con- 
nected with it. t 

Authority delegated to an agent for a specific object, who 
is holden strictly amenable to the brotherhood, is one thing : 
and quite another thing is it when the Church commits the 
whole power of discipline or Church action into the hands 
of agents over whom they have no control. 

Regarding the directions of Christ and Paul as positive and 
prohibitory, no Christian has their permission to become a 
member of any Church in which these principles are con- 
travened. 

God has not given one code of laws for an imperfect state 
of society, and another for a state of society which is perfect. 
He has but one moral law, and this demands that moral 
beings, under all circumstances, and in every grade of capa- 
city and intelligence, love Him with all their heart and their 
neighbors as themselves. Holy angels and unholy angels 
are under this law. The most debased men on earth, and 
saints and angels in heaven, will be judged by the same rule. 
This holy law of God demands that all moral, intelligent 
beings understand and apply its simple, but sublime princi- 
ples to ail their spiritual and secular concerns. There 
seems to be no place for a doubt that a spiritual democracy is 
oth the matter and the form of government best suited to 
a society of believers — to the Christian Church. 



CHAPTER III. 
CONGREGATIONALISM. 

SEC. I. — DEFINITION. 

Congregationalism is a system of ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion, in which the Scriptures are recognized as the only in- 
fallible guide, respecting church order and discipline ; and 
maintains that the church should act authoritatively upon all 
business appertaining to her welfare, and conduct such busi- 
ness to its full and final issue* independent of any person, 
office, power, or judicatory above it, and that Christ and his 
apostles adopted and taught a model of government for the 
preservation of the church in its native purity, and provided 
for the transferring of this model to all succeeding ages ; a 
model wilich needs no improvements from the wisdom of 
man. 

As all church power is vested in the members, assembled 
in the name and by the authority of Christ, to regard a 
church session, or a board of elders, or a committee, as con- 
structively the Church, is inadmissible. 

The birth-right of all men to govern themselves under 
God, is the broad basis of the ecclesiastical constitution of 
Congregationalism, which regards this right as infringed 
when men appoint others to govern them. 

The mutual interests and relations between churches 
require that they watch over each other in the spirit of fra- 
ternal counsel and admonition. 

The parochial or congregational church is the only orga- 
nized, visibly professing association of believers, mention- 
ed by any accredited writer for the space of two hundred 
years after Christ. 

Associated believers should agree in fundamental points 



WHO COMPOSE THE CHURCH ? 25 

of doctrine, but no church has the right to force the con- 
science, or in the least degree to infringe the right of private 
judgment. 

As a matter of fact, though not a part of its polity, in the 
early period of Congregationalism in this country, two min- 
isters were required in each church, one under the name of 
teacher, the other that of pastor : the pastor to administer 
the word of wisdom ; the teacher to attend to doctrine, and 
thereby administer the word of knowledge. 

SEC. II. — WHO COMPOSE THE CHURCH ? 

All who are redeemed by the blood of Christ, and bear his 
image, have a right to church-fellowship, and may claim the 
privileges connected with it. Assent to the organization 
and religious sentiments of any particular local church, and 
a Christian character entitles a person to be received as a 
member. The rule is, to admit to membership such as the 
Scriptures intended, and to exclude none of this character. 
To reject such, is to offend Christ's little ones. 

It is the right and the duty of the Church to examine ap- 
plicants for admission that the members may become satis- 
fied in regard to the Christian character of all who are re- 
ceived ; never knowingly violating the rule — that all are to 
be admitted who give proof that Christ has received them. 
It is not a denial of this right when a church holds the ap- 
plicants on trial for a season. Yet the exercise of this dis- 
cretionary power becomes a sin when it keeps back from the 
ordinances, or excludes those qualified. 

The inherent right of the members to judge of the qualifi- 
cations of applicants for church privileges, does not justify 
the guarding of the portals of the church so as to admit none 
w^ho will not pronounce distinctly the shibboleths of a sect ; 
nor authorize the position which regards assent to a creed as 
a better qualification than known and unquestioned Chris- 
tian character. The right to examine is not the right to 
deny or to annihilate the claims of the applicant. When 
the applicant is, in fact, a true believer, he may claim the 



26 WHO COMPOSE THE CHURCH? 

benefits of church fellowship : and if he give evidence of 
this in a sound Christian character, to shut the door against 
him, infringes upon the right of private judgment, violates a 
fundamental principle of church fellowship, and mars the 
order of the Christian confederacy. 

The institution of the Church is but the instrument for 
the accomplishing the high, holy, spiritual and moral ends 
of the Divine Founder of the Christian faith. From these 
ends, the Church derives its value. 

It is in the light only of these holy purposes that we can 
correctly ascertain and understand the machinery of church 
organization, or ecclesiastical arrangements. No mode or 
arrangement can be scriptural which does not happily sub- 
serve these designs, which must be prominent before the 
Church on the examination and admission of members. 

Neither in their labors for the conversion of sinners, nor 
in the admission of members, have Christians the right to 
act with a special view to the prerogatives of the Pope, or 
the Episcopacy, or the Presbytery, or of any other ecclesias- 
tical body, or of any sect , but always, and only, to the spirit 
and the objects of a pure and benevolent Christianity. 

The Church should be composed of men of God — persons 
of holy endeavor, of prayer. Hence, Christian character as 
defined in the Bible, and nothing else, is the proper scriptural 
qualification of church membership. To find this qualifica- 
tion is the only lawful object of an examination. Without 
it no man can have any right to a place in a Christian 
Church. 

The doctrinal sentiments of the applicant are to be re- 
garded ; the only test which accords with the right of Chris- 
tian fellowship is the cordial reception of the fundamental 
truths of the Christian religion — truths that present and sus- 
tain the rights of God and the rights of man. 

The right of examination extends to persons coming from 
other churches. This right is not always exercised, and 
persons are more generally received on the credit of their 
certificate of regular and good standing in the church they 
have left. This practice promotes confidence and harmony 
between churches. 



WHO COMPOSE THE CHURCH ? 27 

In all voluntary associations and deliberative assemblies, 
the majority governs: the decision of the majority is the 
voice of the body. The majority are not always correct in 
their decisions ; still the ruling power is with them, and 
must be with them. On no other principle can associations 
exist. This is well understood in all church organizations.. 

Should any one claim that his own particular views, or 
what he may deem his own particular rights, shall be sus- 
tained, in opposition to what are the views and the claims 
of the majority, he would prove himself disqualified to be 
continued as a member. 

He has, indeed, the right of private judgment, and may 
present and defend his views ; but if he cannot be gratified 
but by the submission of the majority, he has no right to 
demand this, and the church cannot grant it. In this case, 
his redress is to withdraw ; and if his Christian character be 
good, he has the right to a certificate as a member in confi- 
dence. 

A member has the right to withdraw his connection with 
the Church. No church covenant should trespass upon in- 
alienable rights. 

A member whose moral character is good, but who is 
conscious that he is not a Christian, or one ostensibly a real 
believer, may deem it his duty to withdraw. In this case, 
the brethren will labor to convince him of what they deem 
his proper course : if they fail, the Church may consent to 
his departure on his own responsibility. 

In regard to this, however, there is no prescribed and bind- 
ing rule. 

An arbitrary course will defeat the designs of the Church, 
which may take any action a sound discretion dictates, in 
the treatment of the members, not contravening the princi- 
ples of the Gospel. 

The Saybrook Platform provides that a church member, 
not otherwise scandalous, who shall fully withdraw and 
divide himself from the communion of the particular church 
to which he belongs, the church may justly esteem and de- 
clare itself discharged of any further inspection over him. 



28 ;. OFFICERS 



SEC. III. — OFFICERS. 

Ministers and Deacons are the only officers in the Church 
of Christ, according to the settled principles of Congrega- 
tionalism. 

Ruling Elders are recognized in the Cambridge Platform ; 
but the office has never been regarded by Congregationalists 
as divinely appointed. As early as 1702, Cotton Mather 
says, our churches now are nearly destitute of such helps. 

The office of Deacon is one of great interest and import- 
ance. The Deacon is the Pastor's assistant ; and although 
in a subordinate office, he is expected to perform duties of a 
high religious nature, and not to be confined to the temporali- 
ties of the Church. Many things in the detail must be 
done, both temporal and spiritual, in every Christian congre- 
gation, or the Church essentially suffers. The Deacon's 
office includes these ; and when filled by a faithful, efficient 
man, it is not of course certain that he is less useful than 
the Pastor. Office necessarily increases the influence of the 
incumbent for good or for evil ; and when a man of a bad 
spirit is in office among Christian brethren, the cause of piety 
suffers deeply. Doctor Bellamy, a shrewd observer of men, 
and very frequently called to act in ecclesiastical councils, 
once remarked, " I find that most of the difficulties among 
the churches are occasioned by the conduct of some wicked 
Deacon.' 

His office is distinct from that of the Pastor or Teacher, 
and it is a mistake when churches permit the Deacon to 
supersede the Minister. 

The church which attempts to do without a Pastor, falls 
inevitably into a decline. A brother eminently useful as a 
Deacon has often materially diminished his usefulness by* 
assuming the office of a Pastor. The primitive Deacons, 
Stephen and Philip, preached, and Stephen administered 
baptism. It is probable that the brethren scattered abroad 
from the Church in Jerusalem did the same. Under similar 
circumstances, the same things may be done in any age. 

Deacons are ordained or set apart to their office work by 
prayer, the laying on of hands (a symbol merely of their 



CHURCH OFFICERS. 29 

need of Divine influence), and by an appropriate address or 
charge. 

The office of the Deacon is permanent ; but the period in 
which the incumbent shall serve in the office may be limited 
by the vote of the Church — allowing him, at the expiration 
of his term of service,- to be regarded with others as a can 
didate for the place. This arrangement gives the Church 
the opportunity to bring other gifts into this important office, 
and allows the incumbent to retire without revulsion of feel- 
ing. 

A perpetual Minister, a perpetual Elder, a perpetual Dea- 
con, irrespective of qualifications and usefulness and the 
consent of the Church, is a dire calamity; and as those 
who have the poorest qualifications are sure to be the most 
sensitive of neglect, and the most tenacious of the office, it is 
wise for a church to leave a door pleasantly open through 
which they may lead out an unacceptable Deacon, and pre- 
serve him harmless. 

SEC. V. — STANDING AND AUTHORITY OF CHURCH OFFICERS. 

Minister, Elder, Pastor, Teacher, Overseer, Bishop, are 
different Scripture titles of the same office. The other officer 
is the Deacon. 

A Church includes all who are associated for the main- 
tenance of religious worship ; and, on Congregational princi- 
ples, is complete in her organization to do all that appertains 
to her discipline, and is not permitted to delegate any portion 
of her powers or church authority to others. The members 
are a brotherhood of acknowledged equals, joining hands for 
a common object. These are required to watch over each 
other in love. They need a presiding officer, but this officer 
cannot be clad with the power of the body. They may 
need a committee, but this committee cannot be invested 
with the full power of the Church. This responsibility is 
not transferable. The Churches of the Apostolic age were 
independent, and the bishops pastors of local congregations. 

Among Ministers there is an entire ecclesiastical equality. 
The Minister has no power in the Church except what arises 
from his single vote, and from his weight of character, 



30 STANDING AND AUTHORITY 

Equality is the order of Christ's Church : authority is shared 
equally. 

Congregational principles do not justify the distinction 
between Clergy and Laity as having distinct claims and sepa- 
rate interests, or grades of power. 

All the early disciples considered themselves authorized to 
preach, and, if necessity required, to baptize, and in all pro- 
bability to administer the Lord's Supper. This state of 
thing continued down to the opening of the third century. 

The marked veneration for Ministers, under the title, the 
Clergy, which formerly existed in this country, has very 
much subsided. Powers and privileges claimed by the 
Clergy, and by the Ruling Elders, where they are regarded 
as church officers, have turned public sentiment to the other 
extreme, and contributed much to lessen esteem for the min- 
istry and churches. Clerical usurpations have created a deep 
and extended disgust in very many minds. 

By long usage, the licensing of preachers, public teaching, 
and the administration of the ordinances, have been consid- 
ered as appertaining to the office of the Ministry. But the 
right and the power to direct and regulate these matters are 
inherent in the churches. In several respects, the usages 
among Congregationalists are a marked departure from strict, 
genuine, and pure Congregationalism as practised in the 
Apostolic period, and in the early days of New England. 

Sound Congregational principles and doctrines subject 
every Pastor to the watch and discipline of his church ; 
amenable, like any other member, to the church, the Court 
of triers — the ultimate appeal in all cases of difficulty, and 
possessed of the undoubted right to perform all necessary 
acts of discipline. In his official station only is the Pastor 
a superior, and even this office makes him but the chief 
among equals. 

The Cambridge Platform says, as the church had the 
power to call the Minister to office, so they have the power 
to remove him from office: the church that could receive 
him to fellowship can also cast him out. 

Mather says, when a Pastor has fallen into scandal, the 
brethren that are acquainted with it proceed as they would 
with another brother in such cases ; only with more special 



OF CHURCH OFFICERS. 31 

terms of respect and repetition of addresses, as the relation 
of a father may call for. 

Intellectual gifts, qualifications, an inward call, and the 
voice of the people, inviting a person to exercise these qua- 
lifications in their behalf, with his consent, constitute a Gos- 
pel Minister. Ordination is merely the public recognition of 
the person thus called as an accredited minister of Christ. 
There is something absurd in the supposition that ordained 
Ministers have the sole right of ordaining others. When 
Ministers do ordain, it is because they are invited and ap- 
pointed by the church to do it. 

The fathers of New England, says Cotton Mather, did not 
reckon ordination to be essential unto the vocation of a Min- 
ister, any more than coronation to the being of a king : it is 
but a convenient adjunct of his vocations and a solemn ac- 
knowledgment of it, with an useful and proper benediction of 
him in it. 

The Cambridge Platform states, this ordination we ac- 
counted nothing else but the solemn putting of a man into 
his place and office in the church, where unto he had a right 
before by election, being like the installing of a magistrate. 

Samuel Mather says, it is entirely just and reasonable 
that particular churches should have this power : for they 
are ecclesiastical societies confederate ; that is to say, they 
are churches before they have officers, and even without 
them ; having the nature and essence of a church, they may 
act as such, for the Church of Christ is doubtless furnished 
with sufficient power for its own preservation. Therefore 
if the Elder (Minister) of a particular church be guilty of mal- 
administration, the church ought to depose him, if he do not 
repent and give satisfaction. 

They who have a right to put into office have the right to 
put out of office. The church either puts their Ministers into 
office, or delegates power to neighboring Ministers to do it 
for them, which is the same thing as doing it themselves. 
Therefore as neighlxmng Ministers could not place a Pastor 
over them without their consent ; so they cannot put away 
or dismiss their Pastor without their consent. The voice of 
the church must be had in every act of discipline. And a 
church may dismiss their Minister without the advice, or even 



32 CONGREGATIONAL PRINCIPLES DISTRUSTED. 

contrary to the advice of a council, if they think he has for- 
feited his ministerial character. 

SEC. V. CLASS LEGISLATION AND CLASS ADMINISTRATION 

Are the stepping-stones of an odious aristocracy in the 
state, and can receive no sanction whatever in the church 
: mong Christian brethren ; the whole spirit of pure Congre- 
gationalism turns from the thought with loathing. 

But it is both, when the Minister objects to the church as 
a court to tiy him, by the appeal, that a man should be tried 
by his peers. Who are his peers ? and by whom shall the 
Deacon be tried ? by whom shall the merchant, the judge, the 
lawyer, the general, the rich, the scholar, and the poor be 
tried ? If the Minister can claim exemption from the juris- 
diction of the church, that he may be tried by a jury of Min- 
isters, so may others plead exemption on the same principle, 
and you have distinct tribunals for the different grades in the 
same church. 

Our civil government admits no such distinction. An ac- 
cused person, whatever his station, has his trial before the 
constituted courts of his country, and the effort to pack a 
jury of the same profession, grade, or occupation, with him- 
self is not countenanced. 

This jury trial is a basis principle in the Temple of Civil 
Liberty. Jury trials, under civil government, is Congrega- 
tionalism. All legitimate ecclesiastical courts are a trial bv 
the Jury of the PEOPLE. 

Strict Congregationalism is not fully maintained by all no- 
minal Congregational churches of the present day. But its 
genuineness should be known — its principles understood, 
and the positive injunction of Christ, and the direction of 
Paul, 1 Cor. v., should be studied and solemnly regarded. 

Congregationalism, in its purity, will bear inspection. Its 
centre and circumference are included in the second table of 
the Divine Law — " Thou shalt love jhy neighbor as thy- 
self." 

SEC VI. — CONGREGATIONAL PRINCIPLES DISTRUSTED. 

The full practice of strict Congregational principles, at the 



CONGREGATIONAL PRINCIPLES DISTRUSTED. 33 

present day, would be regarded as the introduction of dan- 
gerous innovations. 

In certain quarters much is said of the conditions upon 
which the administration of the word and ordinances are 
valid. 

When intelligent and spiritually-minded laymen have risen 
up to their Christian work, and gone out in earnest labor, 
fears have been expressed that they were getting out of their 
place, and that encroachments would be made upon the cle- 
rical office-work, and the dignity of the Ministry be lowered. 

The churches need to inquire whether it is best for them 
to act up to their principles, or permit them to be reduced 
to abstractions. The public mind is waking up to the belief 
that Christ has instituted church government and both de- 
scribed and defined if. 

The tendency of things needs to be watched everywhere. 

Civil and political liberty ebbs and flows, is much, or little 
or nothing, according to the standard of freedom erected and 
maintained by the Christian church. 

All the Liberties of the Churches were purchased for them 
by the precious blood of Christ, and, therefore, neither may the 
churches give them away, nor may many churches take 
them out of the hands of one. 

" There can be," says the Christian Investigator, " no fre6 
discussion in the churches, if there be a monopoly of religious 
teaching. And such a monopoly enters into the very idea of 
a clerical caste. We will only notice here a few modern 
specimens of this anti-christian innovation upon the primitive 
usages of the Church of God. 

" In Trumbull's History of Connecticut are recorded abun- 
dant exemplifications of this claim, on the part of the clergy, 
one of whom defined the relative position of clergy and 
laity thus : ' A speaking aristocracy in the presence of a 
silent democracy.' The General Association of the Congre- 
gational Ministers, in Connecticut, adopted resolutions by 
which Whitefleld and Davenport were excluded from their 
pulpits — that is, forbidden to preach to the people, and the 
people virtually forbidden to hear them. The whole terri- 
tory of the State being cut into Congregational parishes, and 
the sect being the recognized ' standing order,' the resolutions 
4* 



34 CONGREGATIONAL PRINCIPLES DISTRUSTED. 

of the clergy were enforced by the civil authorities. The 
Evangelists were banished, and lay preachers were impri- 
soned. But neither resolutions nor statutes, Pastors nor 
prisons, could wholly suppress ' the disorders of lay preach- 
ing,' until the 'great awakening' had ceased, and the reli- 
gious feeling had subsided. Quiet times were then enjoyed by 
the monopolists of religious teaching, till the irruption of Bap- 
tists, Methodists, and other sects, when the same clerical pow- 
er was again exerted, and was partly successful for a time. 
The Congregational clergy of New England, like their 
Presbyterian brethren in the other States, as a body, have 
commonly watched jealously, and repressed cautiously and 
perseveringly, the often rising tendencies towards free speech 
by the laity in the churches. Conference and prayer meetings 
have, at times, disputed their prerogatives, and encroached 
upon their monopoly. Intelligent and pious laymen, includ- 
ing Deacons, have noticed, with pain, for the last half 
century, a constant though quiet effort, on the part of a 
majority of the Pastors, to occupy the time themselves, even 
at meetings appointed originally for social conference and 
prayer, so as to leave as little opportunity as possible for 
lay speaking : designating by name the persons whom they 
might choose to fill up the remainder — thus keeping the 
meeting entirely under their control. With the Congregational 
clergy, this precaution was doubtless thought particularly ne- 
cessary, because the form of church government gave the peo- 
ple so much control over ecclesiastical affairs. A free scope in 
devotional exercises and social worship would seem to them 
upon too frightful an equality with their Pastors. With the 
founders of the Methodist Episcopacy, on the other hand, 
an opposite policy, in this respect, might be safely and ad- 
vantageously pursued. Having secured to themselves the 
control of the church government, the clergy could afford to 
give the popular feeling full vent, in the way of vocal prayer 
and exhortation, in devotional meetings. This attracted 
many to their standard who were under restraint in the as- 
semblies of other sects. The absence of power in the man- 
agement of church matters was scarcely missed by the 
Methodist laity, and they congratulated themselves upon the 
enjoyment of a freedom in social and public worship un- 



CONGREGATIONAL PRINCIPLES DISTRUSTED. 35 

known to their Congregational brethren. Among Baptists, 
the exercise of church government, and the participation in 
the exercises of religious worship, for a time, went hand in 
hand. But in both respects the laity are now in process of 
coming, more than formerly, under clerical control, or super- 
vision. 

*' In this state of the American churches it was that the 
reformatory efforts of the laity, first in the cause of temper- 
ance, and then in the cause of the enslaved, began to agitate 
the community and the churches. Nothing could be more 
natural than that the voluntary associations, with their po- 
pular discussions, their free open* conventions, and their 
itinerating lay lecturers, should throw the clergy, with the 
views they held, into an attitude of self-defence. The tem- 
perance cause, to a great extent, had been impeded, or held 
back, both by clerical opposition and by clerical supervision. 
The laity had become impatient and restive. The vindicators 
of the rights of others began to assert and to exercise their 
own. The exclusive right of moral and religious teaching, on 
the part of the clergy, was in evident jeopardy. A portion of 
them felt and acted with the laity, and have been foremost 
in the struggle. But the majority, and those in high station, 
have set themselves resolutely against the people's rights. 
The particulars we ail know. The same General Associa- 
tion of Ministers in Connecticut that had shut Whitefield 
out of the churches, a hundred years before, attempted to 
shut out the anti-slavery lecturers in the same way. A 
similar association in Massachusetts attempted the same 
thing. This was in 1836. Within a few months past, two 
Presbyteries, if not more, in the State of New York, have, 
indirectly and informally, yet in reality, made similar efforts, 
Meeting-houses have been extensively closed against the dis- 
cussion and the lecture. Churches, through pastoral influ- 
ence, have refused to examine the subject in church meetings. 
The particular topic, and the dread of its agitation, on politi- 
cal and ecclesiastical grounds, was, indeed, among the chief 
causes of the opposition. Ministers have extensively refus- 
ed, on these accounts, to speak on the subject themselves. 
Yet no small part of the difficulty, with clergymen, has 
been, from the first, that they do not wish to encourage the 



36 CONGREGATIONAL PRINCIPLES DISTRUSTED. 

discussion of moral and religious topics in open assemblies 
of laymen, and by tbe people at large. Tbis unwillingness 
has been often and openly avowed, and sometimes in print, 
sometimes in pastoral letters, &c, of clerical bodies. 

" The suppression of free discussion, therefore, on the 
subject of human rights, so far as it has been suppressed in 
this country, we have good reason to charge, in a great 
measure, to the prevalent prejudices of the clergy against 
* lay preaching,' or lay agitation of moral and ethical sub- 
jects. That department they consider exclusively their own ; 
and whether they wish to cultivate the field or not, they do 
not wish to see it cultivated by others. 

" Nothing, therefore, short of a restoration of free discus- 
sion in the churches by such a return to primitive usages as 
shall put to rest, for ever, the clerical monopoly of religious 
teaching, that manifest ' innovation' of the anti-christian 
apostasy — will ever give to the American people that right 
of free discussion which was first crushed in the church, and 
then smothered in the national councils. There must be 
freedom in the church before there can be freedom in the 

STATE. 

" We do not build up the true church of Christ, unless 
our acts show that we regard the spirit of Christianity as the 
spirit of equality, — of equity, of meekness, — of benevolence, 
— of patient duty-doing; — the greatest among Christians as 
the servant of all : — unless our acts show that we believe 
Christians are forbidden to exercise authority over each other, 
as do the lords of the Gentiles : — that they are all a royal 
priesthood ; — and that while there are official stations, there 
can be no distinctions among them as Christians, between 
honorable and degrading avocations : — that Christianity re- 
cognizes no distinctions but in character, and requires each 
to find himself in his neighbor.-" 

Public sentiment in every station of social life, is powerful. 
Churches feel its power, while it is one portion of their great 
work to form a correct public sentiment, and skilfully, but 
righteously, to direct it. A Communion of churches is indis- 
pensable, and to be sought with meek and earnest prayer. 
It is only as this communion is scriptural and complete, that 
the Church really proves a blessing to the world. 



COUNCILS. 37 

It is no part of the designs of Congregationalism that 
Churches shall be free from responsibility to each other, not 
indeed as a court of review and control, but on the simple 
principle of brotherly love, ready at all times, to give and 
to receive advice, and to express condolence. 

SEC. VII. — COUNCILS. 

Councils are to be composed of Ministers and lay mem- 
bers of the Churches. The Pastor is as truly a delegate from 
the Church which sends him, as the lay-brother who accom- 
panies him, and both have equal authority. 

Ecclesiastical Councils, among Congregational ists, have 
no authoritative or compulsory power, but merely give ad- 
vice. But the Church calling a council may obligate them- 
selves to make its decision final. The principle is, that the 
responsibility rests with the Church, and they are to act in 
the case and decide it, making such use of the advice of 
Council as they best can. 

The right of calling a Council lies in the whole Church, 
and any portion of it aggrieved. The advice of a mutual 
Council, as it is the decision of the highest and ultimate eccle- 
siastical tribunal, cannot be disregarded and rejected with- 
out grief and injury to the whole body of Christians in fel- 
lowship, and a rejection should never occur, but on the most 
serious and conscientious grounds. 

An ex-parte Council is an ecclesiastical tribunal assem- 
bled, by one or more aggrieved individuals, to sit as judges in 
their own case, and is an admitted appendage in the Congre- 
gational arrangement. But as a mutual Council is the regu- 
lar tribunal, it is only when such Council is refused by the 
Church, that the aggrieved are justified in resorting to the ex- 
parte council : and the Churches sent to are bound seriously 
to inquire, whether there is good ground for the call. The 
General Association of Massachusetts in 1823, recommended 
to the Churches in their connection, not to attend ex-parte 
Councils without much deliberation and obvious and urgent 
necessity. 

Congregationalism would preserve every individual, what- 
ever his standing, in full possession of all his religious rights ; 



38 CONSOCIATIONS. 

and in such cases in which he is refused a mutual Council, 
or when sinister motives have swayed the decision, the ex- 
parte Council comes in as a keystone to the system, to check 
the violent proceedings of a dominant party. All persons 
under discipline, may compel a respect for their just rights ; 
and churches, in their treatment of Ministers and brethren, 
proceed with the full knowledge that their doings are liable 
to be re-considered by a mutual, and may be by an ex- parte 
council. 

Councils are, to the present day, the only Ecclesiastical 
tribunals acknowledged in the churches of Massachusetts. 

SEC. VIII. CHURCHES DISCIPLINED. 

It is an estahlished principle that Churches may discipline 
each other, |The only basis of this is the great law of Church 
communion. It is maintained by admonition and exhorta- 
tion, and enforced in case of necessity by signifying a with- 
drawal from fellowship. 

SEC IX.— CONSOCIATIONS. 

In the State of Connecticut mutual Councils have been su- 
perseded by Consociations, which are bodies composed of 
Pastors and Churches within given districts, and derive their 
authority from the Saybrook Platform. All the congregational 
Churches in this State, except fifteen, are consociated. 

The authority for Consociation lies in the position that all 
the Churches ought to maintain Christian fellowship and 
church communion with each other. The degree of power 
is defined by each particular Consociation, and a diversity of 
practice, in some respects, exists between different Consocia- 
tions; each and all, however, are regarded as permanent bo- 
dies, for the adjustment of all cases brought before them, and 
their decision on it is final, not subject to any review or con- 
trol. The church concerned in the trial is to give effect to 
the decision of the body by accepting it, and by submitting 
to it. According to the Saybrook plan, individuals and 
churches who do not submit to the decision of Consociation, 
expose themselves to the highest moral punishment, that of 
excommunication. 



CONSOCIATIONS. 39 

At the same time it is stated that the churches consociated 
are still Congregational, and do not part with any of the 
rights, powers and duties which belong to them by the insti- 
tution of Christ. 

There is not among them a strict uniformity of practice. 
The general rule is — no appeal from the decision of the body, 
although it may call in the aid of a neighboring consociation. 
In 1822 the General Association of Connecticut voted that 
the Consociation is the Supreme tribunal, and that its deci- 
sions cannot be questioned and subverted by any other tri- 
bunal. 

The consociation system has not been extended beyond 
Connecticut and Rhode Island. 

This system of church government is an obvious departure 
from original, strict Congregationalism, and while its admir- 
ers state that the churches are still Congregational, and in 
possession of all their rights, it is certain that they are not 
complete in themselves, exercising uncontrolled all the 
powers of discipline. 

The Connecticut churches have happily flourished under 
it. It is not, however, clear that the Congregational churches 
in Massachusetts and elsewhere, without the plan, have 
flourished less. 

Standing Councils to adjust church difficulties, are a sort 
of standing invitation to churches not to adjust their own 
difficulties, as their Divine Lord commanded them. 

Sleepless vigilance is the price of liberty. It is better to 
stand immoveable upon first principles, and to endure the 
defects of occasional Councils, than to encounter the dangers 
and certain hazards of those that are permanent. 

It was one of the common-sense, discerning, household 
sayings of Dr. Emmons — Associationism leads to Consocia- 
tionism, Consociationism leads to Presbyterianism, Presby- 
terianism leads to Episcopacy, Episcopacy leads to Roman 
Catholicism, and Roman Catholicism is an ultimate fact. 

The ill effects of a departure from the simple institution 
oi Christ, are becoming painfully prominent among the 
several sects in this country. We are tending to Rome, is a 
motto that would not be inappropriate for some things among 
us. Not a few of the leading Ministers and others among 



4GC PASTORAL ASSOCIATIONS. 

Congregational churches have long shown a hankering after 
Presbyterianism. And among Presbyterians are irrepressible 
longings for the embraces of Episcopacy. And among the 
fashionable Quakers and aspiring Independents of England 
it is becoming very easy to slide into the Established Church ; 
while there and here, the adherents of Episcopacy find a 
charm drawing them along the pathway of Puseyism to- 
wards St. Peter. Tendencies should not be overlooked. 

SEC. X. CONFERENCES OF CHURCHES 

Are permanent bodies, united under a constitution, and form- 
ed solely for religious purposes— are composed of lay dele- 
gates and ministers— exercise no acts of authority or discipline, 
and disclaim expressly all interference with the rights and au- 
thority of particular churches. The specific objects are, union 
in prayer, extension of Christian intercourse and acquaint- 
ance, mutual instruction, aiding feeble churches, and to give 
strength and vigor to individuals in the Christian life, thus 
co-operating with the Spirit of God in the faithful improve- 
ment of the gifts Christ has bestowed. 

The York Conference, in Maine, was formed in October, 
1823. 

The system was adopted in other Counties and States, and 
has become extensively regarded as the ornament, comple- 
tion and stability of Congregational church government and 
order, and thus the seed planted by Cotton, 200 years ago, 
is beginning to bear its fruits. 

Each Conference is an independent body, forming its own 
rules, which forbid the exercise of any authority or control 
over the churches. There is no evidence that the churches 
were joined together by association, confederation, or any 
bonds but those of charity and a mutual interchange of kind 
offices, till the middle of the second century. 

SEC XI. — PASTORAL ASSOCIATIONS 

Are a part of the Congregational polity. They are stated 
meetings of Ministers, for the purpose of mutual counsel and 
intellectual and spiritual improvement, and in Connecticut 
and Massachusetts meet annually. In Vermont- this annual 



PASTORAL ASSOCIATIONS. 41 

assembly is called the General Convention. Neither the 
primary nor the general associations profess any desire to re- 
strict the liberty of the churches. The General Association 
of Massachusetts aver, that their body is founded on the pure 
principles of Congregationalism, and is designed to cherish, 
strengthen, and to transmit these principles, disclaiming all 
ecclesiastical power over the churches, or the opinions of 
individuals. 

Since 1834 there has been a General Association in the 
state of New York, composed of ministers and laymen from 
minor associations : its meetings are for consultation and ad- 
vice, and not for the exercise of any legislative or judicial 
power. 

At the same time this body requires, as a condition of 
membership, that the minor associations of which it is com- 
posed, exclude from their fellowship and irrespective Chris- 
tian character any who may believe in the actual attainment 
of perfection in any case ; or that it is attainable in this life, 
in this sense, and may be made an object of rational pursuit. 

Latium tendimus. " we are going to Rome," should be 
written on the vestibule of their temple, Such movements 
are not solitary among churches and ecclesiastical bodies 
professing great liberality, and cannot fail to impress the 
thinking part of the community. 

Public sentiment, among Congregationalists, has from the 
beginning been in favor of an able, well-educated, pious and 
faithful ministry. For many years from the first settlement 
of this country, the churches permitted brethren to preach 
who had passed through some approved system of education, 
and presented restimonials of church membership. In 1705 
it was recommended to the churches to require of their 
preachers some testimonial from under the hand of an asso- 
ciation of ministers ; and down to the present day the pasto- 
ral association is regarded as the body from which the 
preacher is to receive his licence. 

On strict Congregational principles, however, the church 
is competent to examine and license the preacher, But by 
usage this matter has been under the direction of the meet- 
ing of Ministers, and the churches have called upon them to 
lead in the ordination of their Pastors. 
5 



42 TENDENCIES. 

A noticeable fact. Quite recently, and in tlie midst of 
Congregational influences, and in the wake of the jealous, 
liberty-loving Puritans, meetings of Ministers decide, that an 
ordination is not valid when a layman's hand is on the head 
of the candidate at the time of his consecration. 

TENDENCIES. 

The General Assembly of 1843, had a long and spirited 
discussion on the rights of Ruling Elders to impose hands at 
ordinations. Of these church officers, Doctor Miller, p. 208 
of his work, says : " Whether, therefore, we refer to the 
early usage, or to strict philological import, Ruling Elders 
are as truly entitled to the name of Clergy, in the only le- 
gitimate sense of that term, that is, they are as truly eccle- 
siastical officers as those who labor in word and doctrine/' 
Thus he reduces the Clergy to a level with the lay Elders, 
and effectually breaks the charm which invests the Ministry 
with dignities, immunities and powers exclusively their 
own. 

But the General Assembly give their own version. On 
one side it was argued that ruling Elders had the right to 
impose hands, on the ground that they were members of the 
Presbytery. On the other side it was contended, that they 
had no such authority, inasmuch as Ministerial acts could 
be performed only by Ministers. Ministers are the repre- 
sentatives of the HEAD of the Church, the Elders represent 
the body. The Ministers are Christ's representatives, the 
Elders the Church's representatives. Here are two elements 
of office — election of the Minister by the Elders, who repre- 
sent the people — and the ordination by the Ministers who 
represent Christ. The church gives to the Ruling Elder his 
power — and what is it ? — not the power to ordain, for the 
church, aside from the ministry, does not possess this power 
— but the power to deliberate, advise, and decide, but not to 
impose hands. This significant act, viz. the laying on of 
hands, is an emblem of the transfer of Ministerial power. 
But the Church is not the depository of this power, and 
therefore she cannot delegate it to her representatives. The 
iinal vote on this question stood, in support of the right of 



COUNSEL ON TRIALS. 43 

Ruling Elders to impose hands in ordination, eight, against it, 
134. Although according to Doctor Miller they are as truly 
ecclesiastical officers as the Ministers. — Latium lendimus. f 
This scrap of history is too valuable to remain buried. 
The very height of the Pope's claim is the power to confer 
spiritual and ecclesiastical authority. 

SEC. XII. — COUNSEL ONJTRIALS. 

The Presbyterian form of government forbids the em- 
ployments any professional counsel to plead before eccle- 
siastical courts. 

No person is allowed to appear as counsel for another, 
before any Consociation, who is not a member of a Congre- 
gational Church, and in good standing. 

In the Consociation of New Haven West, no person prac- 
tising as an attorney at law in the civil courts is allowed to 
appear as counsel. 

In New Haven East Consociation, no person who has 
made pleading law his business, -is admitted as an advocate, 
unless he be a member of a church belonging to the Conso- 
ciation. 

In the Consociation of New London, no person is per- 
mitted to appear as counsel for any party : nevertheless, the 
Consociation, when, in its judgment, the fair and full inves- 
tigation of any cause requires aid, may designate one of its 
own members to present and examine witnesses in favor of 
one or both parties. 

Councils and Churches, as they are independent bodies, 
will decide this question at their discretion. The usage is, 
not to admit professional counsel. 

The preceding thoughts and facts furnish the answer to 
the question full of interest to a Congregationalist amidst op- 
posite influences, What is good, old, New England Congre- 
gationalism ? Had emigrants from New England better un- 
derstood this question, and been less yielding on fundamen- 
tal points of Church polity, pure,, deep pious feeling would 
not have been so extensively smothered and outraged. 

SEC XIII. — CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE WEST. 

A very large portion of the first settlers in Western New 



44 PLAN OF UNION. 

York and Northern Ohio, were New England Congregation- 
alists, mingling with emigrants from all portions of Chris- 
tendom, and all with their respective partialities in reference 
to religious doctrine and practice. To enable Presbyterians 
and Congregationalists embracing substantially the same 
doctrinal sentiments and views to co-operate, the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, on one part, and the 
General Association of Connecticut on the other part, in 
1801, proposed, through their Missionaries, to the inhabit- 
ants in the new settlements, the following 

SEC. XIV. PLAN OF UNION. 

A plan of union between Presbyterians and Congregation- 
alists in the new settlements, adopted in 1801. 

" 1st. It is strictly enjoined on all their Missionaries to the 
new settlements, to endeavor, by all proper means, to pro- 
mote mutual forbearance and accommodation, between those 
inhabitants of the new settlements who hold the Presbyte- 
rian and those who hold the Congregational form of Church 
government. 

" 2d. If in the new settlements, any church of the Con- 
gregational order shall settle a Minister of the Presbyterian 
order, that Church may, if they choose, still conduct their 
discipline according to Congregational principles, settling 
their difficulties among themselves, or by a council mutually 
agreed upon for that purpose. But if any difficulty shall 
exist between the Minister and the Church, or any member 
of it, it shall be referred to the Presbytery to which the Min- 
ister shall belong, provided both parties agree to it ; if not, to 
a council consisting of an equal number of Presbyterians and 
Congregationalists, agreed upon by both parties. 

" 3d. If a Presbyterian church shall settle a minister of 
Congregational principles, that church may still conduct 
their discipline according to Presbyterian principles; except- 
ing that if a difficulty arise between him and his church, or 
any member of it, itie cause shall be tried by the Associa- 
tion, to which the said Minister shall belong, provided both 
parties agree to it; otherwise by a council, one half Congre- 
gationalists and the other half Presbyterians, mutually agreed 
on by the parties. 



PLAN OF UNION, 45 

te 4th. If any congregation consist partly of those who hold 
the Congregational form of discipline, and partly of those who 
hold the Presbyterian form ; we recommend to both parties 
that this be no obstruction to their uniting in one Church 
and settling a Minister; and that, in this case, the Church 
choose a standing committee from the communicants of said 
church, whose business it shall be to £all to account every 
member of the church, who shall conduct himself incon- 
sistently with the laws of Christianity, and to give judgment 
on such conduct: and if the person condemned by their 
judgment be a Presbyterian, he shall have liberty to appeal 
to the Presbytery : if a Congregationalist, he shall have lib- 
erty to appeal to the body of the male communicants of the 
church : in the former case, the determination of Presbytery 
shall be final, unless the church consent to a further appeal 
to the Synod, or to the General Assembly : and in the latter 
case, if the party condemned shall wish for a trial by a mu- 
tual council, the cause shall be referred to such council. 
And provided the said standing committee of any church, 
shall depute one of themselves to attend the Presbytery, he 
may have the same right to sit and act in the Presbytery, as 
a Ruling Elder of the Presbyterian church." 

This was the original compact between the parties acting 
as Missionary Societies. The general stipulation is, that 
their Missionaries shall not conflict in attempts to build up 
each his own sect, but shall endeavor to promote forbear- 
ance and accommodation between Presbyterians and Congre- 
gationalists, that, while in this incipient state, and before 
members were sufficient to justify church organization in 
accordance with educational preferences, they should main- 
tain worship together. 

All that the original parties in this plan did, or could do, 
was to give advice suited to the circumstances of the people. 
This is all that the plan contains. When in any location 
there was strength enough to sustain public worship, under 
either the Presbyterian or Congregational form of govern- 
ment, this plan was not to be followed. It was only when 
it became necessary to unite Presbyterians and Congrega- 
tionalists in a joint effort to support religious worship that 
it could apply. Compliance is the voluntary act of the Min- 
5* 



46 PLAN OF UNION, 

ister and the people concerned, and to be continued or not at 
their discretion. 

The churches which have acted upon this plan have been 
Congregational both in their preferences and their organiza- 
tion. 

The greater portion of these churches have become con- 
nected with Presbytery, and submitted their doings to its re- 
view and control. 

This union to Presbytery has been a severe trial to the 
members of the Congregational Churches, who very cheer- 
fully assented to receive Presbyterians into their number and 
to allow them a trial by a standing Committee, and from 
this an appeal to Presbytery, but were very reluctantly in- 
duced to yield to it, the control of the Church. 

This general connection of the churches with Presbytery 
has been effected by the Ministers, who have formed Presby- 
teries and urged the Churches to go with them. 

A church, consisting of members on the plan of union, is 
not Piesbyterian, as its business is not done by a session, nor 
strictly Congregational, as the business may be done by a 
standing committee. 

A vote of the church is needed, expressive of the wish to 
come under the control of the Presbytery, and a vote of the 
Presbytery to decide whether a church, that is not Presbyte- 
rian in its organization, thus mongrel in its elements, can 
become a constituent member of the body. 

When the church votes to apply for admission, it is not 
that she may become a Presbyterian church, but, having 
given up one of her fundamental elements, that she may 
allow to Presbyterians a benefit, and receive a benefit from 
them, she knocks at the door of Presbytery that, in this mon- 
grel state, in which she dare not assume the honored name 
either of Presbyterian or Congregational, she may be accom- 
modated, by receiving the aid and advice of the body, till 
there shall be strength enough gained to enable her to lay 
aside her nondescript, mongrel componentcy, and become 
truly Presbyterian or Congregational. This is the simple 
fact in the case, and should not be concealed. 

It is this accommodation only that the church asks, and 
this accommodation is all which, in the nature of the case, 



PLAN OF UNION. 47 

Presbytery can give ; and to this effect, a voluntary compact 
is formed between the parties, and to be dissolved by either 
at pleasure. 

It would be extraordinary indeed, that a Congregational 
church, in placing herself under the wing of a Presbytery 
for shade and refreshment, should, by this act, lose her 
power o 1 liberty to remove from under the shelter ; or that, 
by such a move, she would lose her identity, or forfeit her 
inherent and original claims. 

By vote of the church the accommodation was obtained ; 
and, when the church no longer feds the need of such 
accommodation, she withdraws from it by her own vote, 
and thus drops one of her anti-congregational appendages ; 
nor has the Presbytery, the other party in the contract, the 
right to object, or to exercise any control whatever over the 
church, or any of its members. 

Churches, like other voluntary associations, are governed 
on the majority principle. In all cases the voice of the ma- 
jority is the voice of the church, and decides every question. 

When a church, acting on the accommodation plan, with- 
draws from Presbytery, the rights of the minority, should 
there be one, are net infringed, although their preferences 
may not be gratified. They voluntarily joined a church 
without a session, with a knowledge that, in all churches, 
the majority principle, and in a Congregational church the 
right to do their own business, are essential elements. 
This right is partially waved for the time being, while the 
accommodation is accepted, hut the right is not relinquished. 

In presbyterial and synodical reports such churches as 
are without a session, are recognized as Congregational 
churc 1 $ : which is an admission, by presbytery, that they 
have the right to govern themselves, and withdraw and to 
govern their own members. 

The plan of union has been in operation nearly half a cen- 
tury. In the estimation of some, its influence is regarded as 
happy. By others this influence is deemed disastrous. 

After the trial of this plan for thirty-six years, the Gene- 
ral Assembly, one of the original parties to the agreement, 
decided that tne effects were such as to warrant the exscind- 
ing from meir venerable and orthodox body the synods of 



48 PLAN OF UNION. 

Geneva, Genesee, Western Reserve, and Utica, which has 
resulted in the existence of two general assemblies, under 
the sectarian cognomen — Old and New School. 

Under the influence of the plan of union, Presbyterianism 
of a certain stamp, spurious indeed, in the judgment of the 
Old School Assembly, has greatly increased; elements in 
genuine Congregationalism have been annihilated ; the rights 
of congregational Churches have been crushed ; and a large 
number of Ministers, fresh and warm from New England, 
and Congregational in all their training, have undergone 
rapid and ominous changes in the Presbyterian crucible, 
painfully illustrative of the tendencies of things. 

Under this plan of union, the practical import of accommo- 
dation has been abandonment in reference to Congregation- 
alists. 

When complaints in respect to the churches and presby- 
teries affected by this plan, have been uttered on the floor of 
the General Assembly, Ministers have warmly and confi- 
dently admonished the body to hold on in patience, for we 
are fast bringing the western Congregational Churches over 
to Presbyterianism. 

And during all this process Ministers have strongly re- 
monstrated with unquiet brethren, averring that, by the plan 
of union, all the rights of Congregationalists are secured to 
them. 

The course pursued by Ministers, Congregational in all their 
training, in going so fully into Presbyterianism, has been 
like a permanent system of dragooning the Congregational 
brethren for forty years. 

The standing reason for this somerset of Congregational 
ministers into Presbyterianism is, that in the new and west- 
ern churches there is not sufficient intelligence among the 
people to qualify the churches for self-government. Con- 
gregationalism will do for New England, but at the west the 
churches must have a more rigid government. 

But a people who can skilfully direct business enterprise, 
who are shrewd enough to value and to apply democratic 
principles in their civil concerns, and who rapidly throw up 
around them the institutions and embellishments of the arts, 
commerce and literature, must possess the elements of self- 
control in concerns ecclesiastical. 



PLAN OF UNION. 49 

A Congregational Church connected with Presbytery does 
not, by a withdrawment, lose any of its essential elements. 
The only change effected by it is simply this, the church 
ceases to be under the control of Presbytery. The Standing 
Committee and the liberty of such as desire to appeal to 
Presbytery may still remain : the identity of the church, her 
name, her title, her place, and forms of worship, and her 
connection with the congregation, all remain as before, un- 
less reached by some other action of ths church. 

Pre shy terianism is a term used to designate the Congrega- 
tional Churches of New England from its first settlement ; 
not that these churches were presbyterial in their organiza- 
tion, but because they adopted, in general, as their religious 
creed, the confession of faith, prepared by the Westminster 
Assembly ; the appellation Presbyterian does not, therefore, 
definitely mark the form of government, or the ecclesiastical 
connection of the church, to which it is applied. 

The title of a church to property is not vitiated, unless the 
conditions, upon which the property was given, are vio- 
lated. 

If no conditions are expressed by the testator, his design 
in the case must be learned by the general designation ac 
companying the bequest. 

The church designated, continuing the same in its general 
features, as when the bequest was made, retains its title un- 
impaired. 

The question of title to property goes for decision before 
the civil courts, which has no jurisdiction over churches. 

The material point of inquiry by the court will be, is the 
church now the same church continued, which is designated 
by the testator ? What were the essential elements at the time 
the will was signed ? What are the essential elements of 
the church now ? 

The ground on which church claims to property have 
been settled, is that the majority governs. Where the ma- 
jority goes the title goes. Property remains where the ma- 
jority of the legal voters in the body remain. Property, of 
right, goes villi the body social, religious or corporate, to 
which it was given, unless there be a condition, appended 
by the donor, with which the body has not complied 



f 

50 PLAN OF UNION. 

Churches having become corporations, either by legisla- 
tive enactment or by common law, may maintain a perpetual 
succession, and possess certain rights, which they can legal- 
ly defend in their united or corporate capacity. 

It is not known that civil courts have contravened the ma- 
jority principle on any question involving church property. 

The minority have their rights, and must find their redress, 
if wronged, in a rightful way. 

When a Presbytery declares those members of a Congre- 
gational church, who are in the minority on the question of 
dissolving its connection with the body, the church, and 
receives from that minority a delegate to act as a regularly 
accredited member, it is in every sense extra-judicial, an act 
violative of the principles of Christian communion, subver- 
sive of order in the church, and conducive to the destruction 
of all confidence in church courts. 

Fundamental principles should, in all cases, be paramount, 
clearly announced, and fully understood ; above all, and es- 
pecially, should they be understood by the governed ; and the 
conviction deep and ineffaceable that these principles are im- 
mutable. 

Let these principles be freely discussed and correctly un- 
derstood by the people, and there will not occur among 
Christians that diversity in applying them which will occa- 
sion disastrous dissensions, or needlessly multiply churches. 

Christian benevolence and good common sense will teach 
churches, and the non-communicants connected with them 
in the Congregation, that if the kernel be in a healthful, ger- 
minating state, there will be no call for contest about the 
shell : — or if true Christian character be promoted ; if real 
converts to Christ be multiplied ; if Christian principle be 
triumphant in the general and uniform practice of the mem- 
bers, they can live and labor together, and lull their conflict- 
ing preferences asleep, amidst the common and deeply flow- 
ing sympathies of the Brotherhood. 

The object of Church Government is to promote the reli- 
gious and spiritual interests of all concerned, in which are 
involved their highest and sweetest temporal enjoyments. 
Its pure principles discard all monopoly, and turn with 
loathing from all class legislation. Its objects can never be 



PLAN OF UNION. 51 

gained by the mere exercise of power. Its energies lie in 
persuasion. The ban of a correct public sentiment is its rod 
of correction. Success arises from the maintenance of a 
sacred, vivid, ever-present, and ever fresh regard and respect 
for all the rights of each and of all concerned, and Christians 
must be vastly deficient in a right spirit and good sense if, 
while they make paramount these blessed and heaven-deriv- 
ed fundamentals, they allow themselves to split into parties, 
in the maintenance of a mode. 

The beauty, the energy, the practical utility of church 
government lie in its simplicity ; and it is a fatal mistake to 
take the ground that the body of the church, or the assem- 
bled brotherhood, whom our Divine Lord made its deposi- 
taries, cannot understand it, nor be safely entrusted with it. 
Admit that Christians are competent to govern in their own 
religious and spiritual concerns, and let them become prac- 
tised in their duty, under a sense of their responsibility, 
and good men can put up with many concessions to each 
other for the general good. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SCHISM- 
sec. I. — DEFINITION. 

Schism in a Church is a rent, a division, a separation. 
Hence to answer the questions, What is schism? and, 
Who is schismatic ? we nrist know what is unity among 
Christians, or the oneness of the Church. The fact is this. 
All holy beings, whether on earth or in heaven, are one with 
God—in their sentiments, principles, affections, desires, aims, 
efforts, interests, expectations, hopes, prospects, destiny. 
Who shall separate them from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus the Lord ? And who, without doing this, can 
separate them from each other ? To be alienated . from 
each other, is to be in the same measure alienated from 
God, or from Christ. When this alienation exists, Breth- 
ren in Christ are separated, and there is a schism in the 
true fold of Christ, inflicting a deep wound upon genuine reli- 
gion. Peace and unity among the holy, that they may effi- 
ciently co-operate, confer the richest blessings upon human So- 
ciety. \ This is just the influence a wicked world needs from 
the Church, and which she is bound to bestow. It is in this 
aense, and only in this sense, that the Church becomes the 
body of Christ, and the fullness of him whofilleth all in all. 
All who have been born of the Spirit, are living, acting 
members of this body, and they should abide in the fact that 
among them there is no place for a rent. To divide them is 
to cleave in twain the body of Christ. The attempt to sepa- 
rate them, is rebellion against their common Head. 

So long as any local church maintains the spirit of Christ, 
performing the work of her Lord, in acts of benevolence to 
the poor, exemplifying the principles of righteousness toward 
all classes, and has no fellowship with known sins, there is 
no just cause for disaffection on the part of its members. To 



SCHISM A CRIME. 53 

break in upon the unity of such a church ,*would be schism 
in the Body of Christ. 

But let the spirit of the local Church be that of the world, 
— let her fail to sympathize with Christ in the doing; of his 
work, and in the midst of her splendid acts of benevolence 
oppress the poor, or countenance this oppression,— -let her 
be unrighteous and partial, fellowship members who sustain 
and practise iniquity, and refuse to come out as a thorough 
reformatory body and put away all sinful customs and deeds, 
— and she is not a true Christian Church ; and to protest 
against her course, and even to withdraw from her, is not to 
create schism in the Body of Christ : it is rather a discharge 
of a positive duty— the performance of an act essential to the 
preservation of true church union, and even of the Church 
itself. 

A professed Church, not bearing the marks of a true and 
faithful witness, may embrace a minority who breathe the 
spirit of Christ, and who long to be unshackled in doing his- 
will ; and when these members (at the proper time, and in 
the right spirit and manner) withdraw, they separate them- 
selves from a body of sin and death,— they cut loose from 
an association which is in fact a schism from Christ and his 
real people, and they cannot be justly charged with creating 
a schism in the Body of Christ. 

SEC. II. — SCHISM A CRIME, 

A schism in the Body of Christ, and a schism in an asso- 
ciation merely human, are essentially different. The former 
is a crime : the latter is often an imperious, though a self- 
denying duty. To separate the carnal from the spiritual, 
the real disciples of Christ from the followers of Belial, 
can never create a schism among Christians, nor rend the 
seamless garment of Christ, because this was never designed 
to cover the wolf in sheep's clothing. But the crime of 
schism is committed by arrangements which separate Chris- 
tians from Christians. Such measures do rend the seamless 
garment of Christ, produce disunion and corruption, and 
force the truly pious into church connection with mere 
worldlings, and subject them to the ecclesiastical control and 
example of bad men. 
6 



54 CHRISTIAN UNION. 

The founders of a sect are often the most guilty among 
men. 

Church arrangements are extensively sustained, which 
drive and keep asunder the real friends of Christ, and hold 
up Christians before the world as antagonists ; and all this 
on account of a nonconformity in matters known and ac- 
knowledged not to be essential to sound Christian character, 
and even deep-toned piety. 

All arrangements which make it a condition of Church 
communion that the members speak the dialect of a particular 
school or party in theology, are feculent nurseries of schism. 

It is the province of the Church to expound and to apply 
the principles and directions of the Gospel, in reference to 
membership and Christian fellowship, as before stated, but 
not to legislate about them ; for each true believer has from 
God rights, in these respects, not to be questioned or denied 
by men. 

Outward compacts, agreements, conventional arrange- 
ments, constitutions, confessions of faith, digests of disci- 
pline, and church creeds, may have their benefits, but cannot 
beget Christian character, nor secure Christian union. Nay, 
they are subversive of both, when they prescribe as an es- 
sential to Church membership, that which is not essential to 
a sound Christian character ; and when the benefits of the 
institutions of Christ are denied to those who cannot con- 
scientiously submit to the institutions of men. 

SEC. III.-r-CHRISTIAN UNION. 

Christian union does not consist in submission to church 
authority ; but is a vital principle, lying deep in the spiritual 
life — it is the affectionate, confiding co-operation of the holy 
among men ; and the holy in heaven are grieved, and the 
unholy are made glad, when this co-operation is interrupted 
by sectarian jealousies and dictation. 

Andrew Fuller, at the head of English Baptists in his day, 
admitted, that if the barrier to close communion and restric- 
tive membership was removed, the Baptist church would 
cease to exist as a distinct body. Presbyterians, Methodists 
and other sectarianists, would readily receive to membership, 



CHRISTIAN UNION. 55 

in their respective churches, persons holding different views 
on minor points, but for their bigoted attachment to the false 
position they take in making tests which do not involve 
Christian character. 

The movements of Theological Seminaries, Missionary 
and Education Societies, and indeed all ecclesiastical bodies, 
hold a fearfully ominous connection with schisms. Those 
w T ho direct the education of young men preparing for the 
ministry should be jealously, though charitably watched. 
The power of self-organized clerical bodies has often been a 
withering monopoly. 

Ecclesiastical bodies have not the liberty to create false 
tests, or make any movement which shall embarrass free dis- 
cussion, or smother the free spirit of Christianity. They are 
bound to pursue a course which shall promote the unity of 
the Spirit in the bonds of peace, and strictly and assiduously 
cherish and strengthen mutual confidence among Christian 
brethren. So far as their movements fail to do this they sow 
discord among brethren and create schism. 

The discussions of the present age have thrown much light 
upon the subject of Christian Union, and we now look to 
the church to take the correct position. Leading minds 
should manfully cast off the entanglements of sect and the 
trammels of party, and in the pure magnanimity of Christian 
benevolence, mark out for the churches the broad highway 
of true Christian fellowship and communion. If the Evan- 
gelical Protestant seqs would thus unite and do this, Roman 
Catholicism would speedily wither and die under the process, 
and by no other method can we hope to suppress it. Secta- 
rian altercations among Protestants minister life to this heresy, 

It is a happy omen, amidst the appalling evils which dis- 
tract the church and slander the religion she professes, that 
the public mind is fast approaching the position, that known 
Christian character is the basis of Christian union ; and 

That it is the duty of all Christians to receive and recog- 
nize, in their church relations, all who give scriptural evi- 
dence of being Christians, and none but such. 

This position is at once liberal and strict; liberal where 
Christ is liberal, and strict where Christ is strict. It is scrip- 
tural, philosophical, and in accordance with the common 



56 CHRISTIAN UNION. 

sense of mankind. And its practical development would 
convince an unbelieving world, that Christianity is in fact 
adapted to the wants and exigencies of human society ; the 
only and the very argument needed to render the religion of 
the Gospel triumphant among men. 

What the world needs, is a union of Christians — not a 
truce among the sects. The former is practicable. The lat- 
ter, if gained, is a very different thing from Christian confi- 
dence among brethren. 

The union of Christians, and their unembarrassed co-ope- 
ration, which would be effected, but for the pride of heart in 
reading men in the church, will result in the richest and most 
extensive benefits to mankind ; while the union of sects mere- 
ly would leave unsubdued the spirit of selfishness, the very 
aliment of all sectarianism, and multiply barriers to the 
progress of truth and holiness. 

The union of SECTS might, for a season, create a splen- 
did exterior — but the hidden man of the heart, the essential 
elements of a sound morality, the spiritual energies of the 
church, will all be dwarfish under it, and present the index 
of approaching dissolution. Even the Bible Society, em- 
bracing the single object of the distribution of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, without note or comment, and which, at its formation 
and incipient movements, held out the charm of union of 
sects, so beautiful and imposing, soon failed on this point ; 
and a secession, accompanied by a public controversy, has 
proclaimed to perishing men, that even the Bible must sus- 
tain the views of a Sect, or a large portion of Christians 
cannot unite with the mass of their acknowledged Christian 
brethren in its distribution. 

It has been strongly hoped, that the efforts of Christian 
benevolence, which have so deeply and extensively occupied 
the attention and the energies of the religious public for the 
last thirty years, would result in a substantial and abiding 
union among the churches. Why has this hope failed in its 
fulfilment ? Because cherished and unyielding attachment 
to sect has controlled the ministry, and through them the 
churches. Preferences for what is not essential to Christian 
character have been exalted above what is essential. 

Christian benevolence will not make any material pro- 



CHRISTIAN UNION. 57 

gress in the reform and renovation of the world till this love 
of sect, this thirst for building up a party, this selfish, base 
ambition to consolidate and enlarge my church, be merged 
in the quenchless love for the Union of Christians. 

The object to be magnified is Christianity itself: Christ 
and him crucified — the common object of love and glory with 
all the truly pious. 

The absorbing question before the churches should be, 
What is Christianity ? — what is Christian character ? 

The scriptural answer to these questions will show us 
what is Christian union — that this union is practicable, and 
the great, grand, glorious object now to be sought — the one 
point to be pushed in Christendom. The fact was never be- 
fore so prominent, that the world is in waiting for this 
movement on the part of the church. 

Christianity presents the only BOND of UNION— the 
only central power — the only attractive rallying point in our 
world. 

Christian union involves a union of views respecting the 
fundamentals of Christianity, the objects of worship, the es- 
sential duties to be performed, the principal end to be pur- 
sued. 

To gain this, we must understand what is a purified and 
living Christianity, and cordially embrace it ; and Christian 
union, therefore, can exist only among intelligent, consis- 
tent, self-denying Christians. 

The universal church union of the New Testament de- 
mands that Christians unite in the substance of true religion, 
and thus walk together, waving all differences of views in 
respect to forms, or ceremonies, and doubtful disputations. 
If your religion consist in supreme love to God, and impar- 
tial love to your brother, it is like the religion of all other 
Christians, and the duty is clear that you walk in love and 
fellowship with all Christians. 

No man can be understandingly a friend to Christian 
union who does not cheerfully relinquish his preferences to 
what is obviously the outward forms, the incidentals of his 
religion, and constitutional arrangements, when they prevent 
his co-operation with those with whom he is agreed in the 
substantials of religion. 
6* 



58 CHRISTIAN UNION* 

A Christian is one who truly loves God and man, who 
does justly, loves mercy and walks humbly with God, whose 
doctrines and practice accord with the Bible. The common 
sense of mankind sustains the test of the Saviour, " by their 
fruits shall ye know them," and it is shocked when persons 
are received and retained in the churches, as thousands are, 
whom the community cannot and ought not to regard as 
honest men. 

The following is a specimen of the Bible description of 
Christian character. The righteous considereth the cause of 
the poor, but the wicked regardeth not to know it. Be not 
deceived (i. e. with appearances and professions), he that 
doetk righteous is righteous. Inasmuch as ye did unto 
one of the least of those, ye did it unto me. He that is 
of Christ, hearetlx Christ's words. Whosoever transgresseth 
and abideth not in the doctrine of God, hath not God. He 
that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath the Father and 
the Son. Beware of false prophets : take heed and beware 
of men. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of 
darkness, but raiher reprove them. Put away from among 
yourselves that wicked person. Come out from her, lest ye 
partake of her sins and receive of her plagues. 

Christian unity and sectarian schism should be studied. 
The dearest interests of men are connected with the issue. 
The world's hope is wrapped up in Christian unity. Its 
good and glory culminate, only as sectarian schism wanes. 

The union of Christians is the great blessing which 
the church should not withhold from perishing men another 
moment ; a union cemented by the due recognition of Chris- 
tian character as its warrant; a union which will fellowship 
Christian character, and disfellowship false professors; a 
union which will elevate and honor the Bible standard of 
Christian character — a character defined and marked by an 
obedient reception of Christian doctrines as the nutriment 
and the law of spiritual life, the directory and incentive to 
the Christian practices which alone constitute true godli- 
ness. 

The church is bound to hold up the divine standard, by 
which the character of men is to be tested, and she becomes 
the light of the w T orld only as she extends or withholds 



NON-AGREEMENT. 59 

church fellowship in strict conformity with this standard, 
which is to make Christian character the condition of church 
membership, and the forfeiture of this character the sole war- 
rant for the act of excommunication. This is the divine rule. 

The first Christian churches included those only who were 
acknowledged to be Christians. The Christian brotherhood 
was not then divided into sects. The creation of parties and 
calling them by different names, after the names of eminent 
teachers — Paul, Apollos, Cephas — was forbidden. 

That there should be a diversity of sentiment and views 
is a matter of course. But this diversity should never pro- 
duce alienation of feeling and recrimination among Chris- 
tians. 

SEC. IV. ENTIRE AGREEMENT AMONG CHRISTIANS NOT TO 

BE FOUND. 

The sects and churches are refusing Christian fellowship, 
denouncing and excommunicating each other, and all under 
the plea of purifying the body ; at the same time, these very 
sects and churches embrace diversities of sentiment and 
views, and differences of a wider and more serious character 
than those, on account of which they refuse fellowship, 
exscind and excommunicate each other. 

The church or religious association is yet to be named, in 
which all the members perfectly agree in all their views of 
doctrine and practice. 

Members of the same sect and the same church in all 
Christendom, differ from each other on points more material 
far, than those on which the sects are now divided. Even 
should Christians be perfect in holiness, their imperfection 
in judgment and knowledge would occasion diversitities in 
views. A union in the fundamentals is wjttat should be 
sought — this can be had — and this, when gained, should 
quiet individuals and quiet the body ; and what censure too 
severe for the men who sow discord among brethren thus 
agreed. 

All sorts of theological sentiments are found in the Epis- 
copal, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Congregational 
churches in Christendom. The authorized creed of the secta- 
rian churches does not accurately express the sentiments of 



60 NON-AGREEMENT. 

all the members. Signing a creed does not make men think 
alike, nor prove that they do think alike, any further than 
on the basis of general principles. Nor should the con- 
science be bound by virtue 1 of any inherent authority in 
papers and parchments of mere human origin. 

The attempt to procure a perfect uniformity through the 
medium of the Westminster Assembly is instructive on this 
subject, both on account of its success and its failure. It 
was an Assembly of learned and godly divines of Great 
Britain, to consider of all things necessary for the peace and 
good government of the church, convened by Act of Parlia- 
ment passed June 12, 1643, and consisted of ten lords, twenty 
commoners as lay assessors, and one hundred and twenty- 
one divines — one hundred and fifty-one in all. In forming the 
Confession of Faith and the Rules of Practice, this body 
held 1163 sessions, occupying a period of 5 years, 6 months 
and 22 days ; and amidst prayers and fasting, and indefati- 
gable investigations and discussions, they advanced no fur- 
ther towards an entire or perfect union than an agreement in 
fundamentals, and in general views of doctrine and practice. 
Even this was a great achievement. 

The great leading churches in Christendom, at the present 
day, do not present anything like a perfect, or even particu- 
lar agreement, though connected externally by a common 
bond or creed. Nor are those who are received into these 
connections required, or even expected, to assent to the creed 
in every particular, but to declare their belief in its correct- 
ness as a general system. 

Who that is not committed to a party, or to a system, can 
believe that the points in controversy between Calvinists 
and Armenians, Old School and New School, Pedo-baptists 
and Baptists, involve any fundamental principle of morality 
and justice, or that the following out in practice the views 
of either, will prove the forfeiture of Christian character ; or 
that any divine law or precept demands that Christians, thus 
differing, should lose confidence in each other, and refuse to 
walk in Christian and church fellowship ? 

Uniformity in sentiment and views is not yet attained even 
in churches which are founded on speculative theology and 
ritual observances. Presbyterian and Congregational com- 



NON-AGREEMENT. 61 

munions, with their Calvinistic creed, tolerate ministers and 
laymen who are decidedly Armenian in their views. The 
great schism in the General Assembly was based on sup- 
posed errors in doctrine. But in how many of the local 
churches of the Old School, who perpetrated the exscinding 
act, is the position then taken strictly maintained ? 

The Episcopal Church tolerates everything in theology, 
from Socinianism to Calvinism, provided you will read pray- 
ers and reverence the bishop. Baptists find little difficulty 
with Armenians or Calvinists, provided they have been duly 
immersed. And the Pedo-Baptist sects, without any change 
in their creeds, which intimates a relaxation of their princi- 
ples, get along in practice with those who will warmly sus- 
tain their church or their meeting, although they do not ac- 
cord with them in the distinctive points which make them a 
sect, and even set at naught the fundamental principles of 
justice and common humanity. 

It was recently inquired, through the columns of the Bap- 
tist Register, printed in Utica, N. Y., " Which has been pro- 
ductive of the greatest evils, Ameiican slavery, or infant 
sprinkling ?" The reply given was " infant sprinkling : " 
that is, infant stealing, inseparable from the system of sla- 
very, is a less evil or sin than infant sprinkling. 

At a large Ecclesiastical Convention held in Cleveland, 
Ohio, in 1844, in the discussion to adhere firmly to the As- 
sembly's Confession of Faith and the Shorter Catechism, it 
was admitted that the two great schools in the church had 
never agreed in respect to the meaning of these standards ; 
yet the resolution passed to adhere to them. And the points 
on which they could not agree are nothing less than Liberty 
and Necessity, Ability, Imputation of Adam's Sin, the Na- 
ture of Sin, Reformation, Atonement, &c, &c. 

-Who does not perceive the inferences and the instruction 
connected with such facts ? And who, in view of them, can 
be surprised that our common Christianity is robbed of much 
of its beauty, and shorn of much of its strength ? The com- 
mon brotherhood of the pious should not permit aspiring 
men and leading influences to draw off their attention and 
their purposes from the essentials in their common faith, and » 



62 NON-AGREEMENT. 

from what truly constitutes Christian character, and to chop 
them up into parties refusing fellowship and co-operation. 

Real Christians might retain their distinctive principles and 
yet be on terms of the most cordial fellowship and commu- 
nion amidst all their other differences. This is what consti- 
tutes the true unity of the church — a union, not in forms and 
ceremonies, nor in points of unessential doctrine and prac- 
tice, but in kindness and love and harmonious assent to the 
fundamental truths of the Gospel, and in harmonious co- 
operation for the spread of this Gospel. This is the only 
union worth striving for; and all who break this unity, by 
setting up outward forms as terms of communion, should be 
regarded as those who cause divisions, and as violators of the 
peace of the Church. 

Robert Hall, a Baptist minister of great worth and dis- 
tinction, and the advocate of free communion, says, " No- 
thing more abhorrent from the principles and maxims of the 
sacred oracles can be conceived, than the idea of a plurality 
of true churches, neither in actual communion with each 
other, nor in a capacity for such communion. This rending 
of the seamless garment of our Saviour, this schism in the 
members of his mystical body, is by far the greatest calamity 
which has befallen the Christian interest. The evils which 
result from this state of division are incalculable : it supplies 
Infidels with their most plausible topics of invective ; it 
hardens the consciences of the impenitent, weakens the 
hands of the good, impedes the efficacy of prayer, and is 
probably the principal obstruction to that ample effusion of 
the spirit which is essential to the renovation of the world/' 
.. Ecclesiastical powers have always been assumed by the 
few over the many, without any distinct proposal of the 
matter to the people, and even without asking them whether 
they would prefer such arrangements In most cases they 
have been so gradually and stealthily introduced, that they 
have grown into precedent before the people were distinctly 
aware of their existence. In this way, Episcopal and Presby- 
terian usages have been introduced and perpetuated. One 
generation after another has been subjected to the domination 
to which their fathers had been induced to submit, for prece- 
dent soon becomes law, and such forms of policy never con- 



NON-AGREEMENT. 63 

tain any provisions for their own subversion by the people. 
They always speak authoritatively against innovation and 
change. All attempt to reform or to annul the church polity 
is met with the charge of disorganization or schism. 

On the subject of church polity, there can be but two sets 
of principles. The first .and the only scriptural legitimate 
class of principles is composed of individual responsibility, 
human equality, inalienable rights. Opposite to all these 
we find in the second class of principles — that of caste — the 
many subjected to the few, the people controlled by their 
superiors, or the laity by the clergy, the body of the church 
transferring its duties to a select few. 

Professor Schmucker, in his Fraternal Appeal, proposes to 
form all the different fundamentally orthodox denominations 
into a progressive union, by requiring a mutual recognition 
of each other as fellow members of the one body of Christ— 
that they shall actually co-operate in voluntary associations 
for the promotion of ali those objects of Christian benevo- 
lence which require a concentration of labor — that the bonds 
of sectarianism shall be at once relaxed — that there shall be 
no discipline by one church for differences of opinion in a 
member of another church — that they shall agree in sacra- 
mental, ecclesiastical and ministerial communion — that they 
shall assent to a common creed, containing only tenets in 
which they all agree — thus giving prominence before the 
world to their substantial unity of faith — the Bible to be the 
text book in all departments of Christian and theological edu- 
cation — each branch of the church free to adopt any and 
every measure of its own reform it might be prepared to em- 
brace. 

The whole work of Mr. Schmucker on Christian union 
has been highly approved, and warmly commended to the 
public by the leading editors of the whole religious press in 
our country ; by Theological Seminaries and their teachers, 
and by a long array of names of learned Ministers and lay- 
men from most of the denominations in the land. 

But what have these men, so ready to commend this plan 
for union, actually done towards the attainment of the object I 
We look in vain to the high ecclesiastical authorities of the 
different sects to move efficiently on any plan for union. 



64 WHO ARE THE SCHISMATICS ? 

Anything requiring self-sacrifice, or involving innovation, 
finds little favor in any age, with the majority of those who 
stand at the head of the existing order of things. 

The plan of Mr. Sch mucker expects too much from the 
union of the existing sects. But to propose the union of 
Christians, acting as local independent Churches — allowing 
of the interference of no ecclesiastical body above the assem- 
bled brotherhood, presents to the mind what at once appears 
practicable — what will meet the demand, and what promises 
to be permanent. It is an appeal to the PEOPLE, where, 
on Christian principles, is the seat of power, of all human 
authority — an appeal for the Union of Christians, not the 
union of Sects. 

SEC. V. — WHO ARE THE SCHISMATICS ? 

The Congregational Church in , withdraws its con- 
nection with Presbytery— a small minority dissent — this mi- 
nority the Presbytery declares to be the regular Church in 

* , and invites them to send up their delegates, and thus 

two Churches exist on the ground, when the whole were too 
feeble to support preaching, and the majority principle is 
sacrificed. 

In , a large majority of a Congregational Church re- 
quest the Presbytery with which they are connected to dis- 
solve the connection between them and their Pastor. Pres- 
bytery refuses to comply; and the Home Missionary So- 
ciety advances 100 dollars to sustain this Minister, in de- 
fiance of the expressed vote of the Church. In the progress 
of the discussion it is stated that one conversion under Pres- 
bytery is worth one hundred under other influences. 

One Presbytery has recently decided, that the ordination of 
a Minister is not valid when a lay element is mingled with 
the ordaining act ; a position at war with the fundamental 
principles of Congregationalism, and which, if carried out, 
will require Presbyterians to deny the validity of all Congre- 
gational ordinations. 

Who are the schismatics ? 

In , at a meeting legally called, the Church voted 

that they would not sustain the Minister for the succeeding 



WHO ARE THE SCHISMATICS ? 65 

year. At the close of the meeting, when a portion of the 
members had left for home, the question was again call- 
ed up — a minority voted to sustain the Minister, and the 
Home Missionary Society advanced 100 dollars, and for 
two years, at this rate, kept him on the ground contrary 
to the expressed will of the majority. 

Congregational Churches, on the accommodation plan, if 
they employ a Minister who has not the permission of Pres- 
bytery to labor within its bounds, are censured for disorder 
thus demanding of Congregationalisms- the sacrifices of one 
of their fundamental principles. 

A Congregational Church unanimously invite a Minister 
who is himself a member of Presbytery to become their 
Pastor ; and unanimously concur with him in choosing for 
the Preacher, at the Ordination, a man? in their confidence, a 
personal friend of the pastor elect, and of known Christians 
character. 

A bar to the ordination is thrown in 7 on the ground that 
the Brother invited to preach is ecclesiastically connected 
with a body not in correspondence with the Presbytery. Id 
the discussion it is alleged — better an avowed atheist should 
preach the sermon — and the final vote to proceed, after the 
congregation had been kept in waiting two hours from the 
time appointed for the services, is passed by a bare majority., 
under the positive statement that if Presbytery do not proceed 
to ordain with the preacher selected, they will lose the 
church. The members of Presbytery who opposed the or- 
dination, generally refused to attend the public exercises. 

If this course is Presbytereal usage, it does not savor of 
accommodation — and adds significancy to the inquiry, Who 
are the schismatics ? and should induce the inquiry, Where 
are Congregational rights ? 

For nearly a half century, the Congregationalists who 
have settled west of the Mohawk river, have, with few ex- 
ceptions, desired to enjoy their own church organization, 
But during all this period, most of the Ministers have as- 
siduously labored to induce them to abandon even the rem- 
nant of Congregationalism left standing by the plan of 
union, and to come fully under the government of a session. 

The General Association of the State of New York ad- 
- 7 



66 WHO ARE THE SCHISMATICS^? 

monish the Genesee Conference in their connection, that 
unless they reclaim or remove such members of their body 
as hold views on the doctrine of sanctincation, which Asso- 
ciation deem unscriptural, they cannot be permitted to retain 
their connection with it : thus demanding the highest ecclesi- 
astical censure, excommunication, against members of 
sound Christian character, and unquestionable piety. 

The Synod of New York and New Jersey, directed the 
North River Presbytery to depose from the ministry two of 
their members of acknowledged piety and usefulness, and of 
an unquestioned Christian character, on the ground of what 
Synod deemed an incorrect view of the doctrine of sanctin- 
cation. The order was obeyed. 

The Presbytery of , very recently refused to 

license a young brother to preach the gospel, on the ground 
that he was an abolitionist. His trial exercises, and ex- 
amination, gave evidence of a high order of talent ; his piety 
was not questioned, all were well sustained, when he was 
asked if he would publicly advocate Abolition, and vote to 
exclude slaveholders from communion ? He replied affirma- 
tively. Upon this they voted not to give him license. 

The Oberlin Institute is a Literary and Theological es- 
tablishment in Northern Ohio, furnished with an able Fac- 
ulty, comprising nearly five hundred students, and exten- 
sively in favor with the public. The religious and theo- 
logical sentiments embraced and taught here, are the same 
substantially, which constitute the religious creed of New 
England Congregationalism, and New School Presbyterians. 

On the subject of Sanctincation, their sentiments and views 
are, in their printed document, thus expressed, 

"I. What we understand to be points of agreement between 
the ministers and members of a great portion of the Chris- 
tian church. 

1 . That entire obedience to the moral law constitutes en- 
tire sanctincation or obedience to God. 

2. That all moral agents are able to render this obedience, 
and, 

3. That therefore they are bound to do so, and, 

4. That therefore a state of entire sanctification is attain- 
able in this life : 1. On the ground of ability. 2. On the 
ground of the provisions and proffered grace of the gospel, 



WHO ARE THE SCHISMATICS? 67 

3. That sufficient grace for the actual attainment of this 
state is abundantly promised in the gospel, and that nothing 
prevents any Christian from making this attainment in this 
life, but a neglect to avail himself of the proffered grace of 
Christ. 

5. We agree that all are bound to aim at it, and pray for 
this attainment in this life, and that aiming at this state is 
indispensable to Christian character. 

II. In what we differ. 

1 . The advocates of this doctrine affirm, that obedience to 
the moral law, or a state of entire consecration to God in 
this life, is, in such a sense attainable, as to be an object of 
rational pursuit, with the expectation of attaining it. 

2. The opposers of this doctrine affirm, 1. That this state 
may be attained in this life. 2. That therefore it ought to be 
attained. 3. That we are bound to aim at, and pray for this 
attainment in this life. 4. That this state is not attainable 
in this life in such a sense as to make its attainment an ob- 
ject of rational pursuit with the expectation of attaining it. 
5. That it is fatal not to aim at and pray for this attainment 
in this life. 6. But that it is a dangerous error to believe or 
to expect that we shall make this attainment. 

III. What the believers in the doctrine of entire conse- 
cration to God in this life do not believe. 

1. We do not believe that the moral law is or can be re- 
pealed, or so modified in its claims, as to demand anything 
less of any moral agent than the entire, universal and con- 
stant devotion of his whole being to God. 

2. Nor that any such state is attainable in this or in any 
other life, as to preclude the possibility and necessity of con- 
stant growth in holiness. 

3. Nor that any state is attainable in this life that will put 
the soul beyond a state of warfare with temptation. 

4. Nor that any such state is attainable in this life as 
will preclude the necessity of constant dependence upon the 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the agency and indwell- 
ing of the Holy Spirit. 

5. Nor that any such state is attainable as to preclude the 
necessity of much watchfulness and prayer, with the diligent 
use of the ordinances of God's house, and of all the appoint- 
ed means of grace, to perpetuate holiness of heart. 



68 WHO ARE THE SCHISMATICS? 

6. We do not believe in any system of quietism, anti- 
homianism, or inaction in religion. 

7. We do not regard the true question at issue between 
us to be, whether a state of entire sanctification has ever 
been attained in this life : but the true question is that which 
has been stated above, to wit : Is this state attainable in such 
a sense as to render its pursuit, with the expectation of at- 
taining it, rational ? 

8. Those of us who have affirmed that this state has been 
attained, have ever regarded the fact of its attainment only 
in the light of an argument in proof of its attainability, in 
the sense above explained. 

9. We have never regarded the proof of actual attainment 
either as the great question at issue, or as an argument at 
all indispensable to the support of the proposition in ques- 
tion. 1. Because we consider the Bible proof as conclusive 
in support of the doctrine without touching the question of 
actual attainment, and, 2. If it should be admitted that such a 
state has never been attained, still we believe the Bible 
warrants and demands the belief that the Church is destined 
to make vastly higher attainments on earth than have ever 
yet been made : and, 3. That if the fact (should it be ad- 
mitted) that no one has ever attained this state, proves that 
no one ever will attain it ; the fact that the world has never 
been converted, proves equally that it never will be con- 
verted. 

10. We therefore waive an expression of opinion on the 
question, whether this state has been hitherto attained, lest 
it should afford an occasion, as it has hitherto done, to divert 
attention from the great and only fundamental point in debate." 

The precise position of these brethren on the subject of 
sanctification is here accurately and clearly defined. The 
reader can see at a glance in what respects they differ from 
the views generally entertained in the churches. That the 
Oberlin Brethren possess a fair Christian character is not 
questioned. 

But the Presbyteries refuse to extend to them Christian and 
ministerial fellowship on the plea that they are a new and 
distinct sect, and teach error. 

Who, then, are the schismatics ? 



WHO ARE THE SCHISMATICS? 69 

Some years since, a large Presb}'tery deemed it their 
duty to counteract what they regarded as the Oberlin Heresy. 
They felt the need of other light upon the subject than they 
could get from the Oberlin Evangelist. President Mahan 
then in the vicinity and apprised of their inquiry, proposed,; 
through a friend, that, with their consent, he would appear, 
before them, and present his views on the subject. Pres- 
bytery declined the proffer, and applied to a brother who 
had utterly and strongly opposed the Oberlin views. In the 
result they sent out a warning to the churches, against the 
Oberlin Evangelist. 

In a large Ecclesiastical Convention, composed chiefly of 
minister?, held in Cleveland in 1844, the avowed object of 
which was to promote the prosperity of religion, Professor 
Finney and his associates were excluded, and the Convention 
permitted these men and their views to be defamed, without 
suffering them to be heard in reply. 

The Church, by a vote nearly mianimous, join with their 
Pastor in a request to Presbytery that he may be dismissed.' 

Before Presbytery he stated that he wished to remain : 
but that he could not endure to be Pastor of a church con- 
taining members who hold the doctrine of perfection. 

Presbytery asked : Do you think that the church would 
sustain you, if these members were out ? 

The Pastpr replied : 1 think 1 could stay in peace if they 
were away. 

At an adjourned meeting Presbytery called before them the 
members holding the views deemed by their Pastor to be ob- 
jectionable. 

These arraigned members inquired — Are we on trial before 
this body ? The reply was in the negative ; and they were 
assured that Presbytery intended no such thing. 

Upon this assurance these members frankly and freely 
gave to the body their views on the subject of Christian per- 
fection, and the subject was referred to a Committee whose 
report was adopted, viz. : that ten of those holding the doc- 
trine of entire sancti fixation were no longer members of the 

church in but that they might have a letter of regular 

standing, with the notice that Presbytery deemed their senti- 
ments heretical. 

7* 



70 LIGHT SOUGHT, 

Against these measures these members remonstrated — - 
and were informed that they were not excommunicated, but 
legislated out. 

The next Sabbath the Pastor, at the communion tai^e, 
invited those excluded persons to partake of the ordin- 
ance. 

Who are the schismatics ? 

SEC. VI. — LIGHT ON SANCTIFICATION EAGERLY AND EXTEN- 
SIVELY SOUGHT. 

There is an irrepressible desire in the churches for Bible 
instruction on the doctrine of holiness, and holy living. In 
some way God will gratify these desires. According to pre- 
sent arrangements many of them are shut out from hearing 
Preachers who give the just presentation of the doctrine. 

If the Ministers now under ecclesiastical pledges to treat 
the doctrine as heresy, would renounce these pledges, and 
extend to its advocates Christian and ministerial fellowship, 
Christians now deprived of the spiritual food on this subject 
which they crave, would be gratified, and the grounds of 
inquietude would be diminished. 

The attempts to brand the doctrine of entire conformity to 
the w T ill of God as heresy, and thus put down its Preachers 
and stopihe spread of divine truth, must fail. 

Christians have their discernment on this subject, and their 
prayers will be answered. 

Should the necessity to break away from their present 
connections be created by the persecuting spirit and measures 
of churches, and ecclesiastical bodies, who are the schis- 
matics ? 

Those who preach the doctrine of entire sanctification in 
this life as an object of rational pursuit, do not present them- 
selves as a new sect, neither do they wish to divide the 
churches. They would feed the sheep and the lambs of the 
fold, and be at peace among the brethren. 

If they are thrust out as heretics, if the pulpits of their 
ministerial brethren are shut against them, who is answera- 
ble for subsequent defections — and who are the schismatics ? 

In the present attitude of ecclesiastical bodies, divisions in 
the churches are inevitable. The Oberlin brethren are not 



FACTS AND EXPOSTULATION. 71 

powerless ; their moral power is pre-eminently in sympathy 
with Christ, and so long as they keep God with them they 
cannot be crushed. Let them be received as Christian 
brethren. If they are not thus received, and divisions occur, 
who bears the responsibility. 

SEC. VII. FACTS AND EXPOSTULATION. 

If the establishment of the Oberlin Institute does not con- 
stitute an era in the history of the church in this country, 
the treatment which its faculty and friends receive ftom 
Ecclesiastical bodies will do it. The facts are too marked 
and characteristic not to be preserved on a permanent record. 

1. It is not denied, that the Oberlin Brethren are among 
those whom Christ has received. 

2. They have been shut out, or excluded from Presbyte- 
ries, Conventions, Pulpits, and Churches, by the extended 
action of ecclesiastical judicatories, and denied the ordinary 
civilities rendered to Christian brethren. 

3. By this general declaration of non-intercourse, these 
Brethren have been represented as a distinct and a new sect, 
heretical in their opinions, and working deep and extensive 
mischief. 

4. Discipline is commenced, and some are cast out of the 
ministry, and others out of the church. 

5. Pastoral letters and appeals are issued, urging those 
who hold Oberlin views to leave Presbyteries and churches, 
threatening them with excommunication and deposition if 
they do not comply. 

6. When Ministers, churches, and portions of churches 
do withdraw, the cry is raised, that Oberlinism is dividing 
and distracting the churches, and the charge of schism is 
reiterated against them. 

7. Thus a division is made by the violent exclusion of the 
Oberlin Brethren, and then the excluders cry out against tthe 
excluded as the cause of the divisions : whereas there are 
very few cases, if any, in which such a separation has not 
occurred under the influence of measures pushed forward by 
the opposition. 

The doctrine of perfection, as held by the Antinomian 
perfectionists, the Oberlin Brethren discard. They do not 



72 FACTS AND EXPOSTULATION. 

believe and maintain that no one is truly converted, or a real 
Christian, who is not constantly and habitually free from all 
sin : — but a person being truly converted, or a real Christian, 
is a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ only as his obedience 
•is entire. 

In what then consists the heresy which makes it neces- 
sary to excommunicate brethren of acknowledged Christian 
character ? 

This question must be answered definitely, to satisfy the 
public mind. A course so extraordinary, so absolutely vio- 
lent, so revoltingly schismatic as that pursued by ecclesiasti- 
cal bodies towards these brethren, cannot long be tolerated by 
the Christian public. 

The basis of action against them is alleged heresy, in 
holding the doctrine of sinless perfection in this life. It was 
the holding and countenancing in their body this heresy, that 
the General Association of New York excommunicated the 
Genesee Consociation. But it is an unquestionable fact, 
that the offence in the eye of the Association is not the of- 
fence justly charged upon the Consociation condemned. The 
excommunicated Consociation ^Ive a printed statement of 
their own views on the subject of perfection, in the follow- 
ing language, viz. : " We do hold the attainability of perfec- 
tion. We speak not of disposition, but of ability — not of 
practice, but of what might be practised. So far as Chris- 
tians are imperfect it is their fault, and their fault only, 
because of the practicability of the higher degrees of holi- 
ness." 

" We have some within our bounds who hold the views 
of Dr. Emmons. Adopting his philosophy respecting the 
simplicity or perfection of moral exercises, they believe with 
him, that the imperfections of Christians consist in the in- 
constancy of their holy affections — their perfection consists 
in the constancy of their holy affections. If they should 
constantly and uninterruptedly exercise holy affections, they 
would be absolutely perfect in holiness, and entirely free 
from sin. These were once the views of Doctor Woods, 
and have been tolerated in the New England churches for at 
least the past half century. We have those in our body 
who hold these views ; this is the amount of our heresy 
We have tolerated them ; this is the sum of our offending." 



FACTS AND EXPOSTULATION. 73 

Yet, with this exposition before the body, the State As- 
sociation proceeded to the act of excommunication. 

There has been a general failure, in these charges of false 
doctrine, to make out the proof, that the heresy is in fact 
holden by the accused. Yet their views on perfection have 
been constantly presented, and in language too plain to be 
doubted. The sentiments charged upon the accused are as 
abhorrent to them as they can be to the accusers, the former 
holding the doctrine of sinless perfection in no such sense 
as is imputed to them. 

Brethren Belden and Hill were deposed from the ministry 
by the North River Presbytery, acting under an injunction 
from the Synod of New York and New Jersey, on a charge 
of rejecting the doctrine of sanctification as taught in the Con- 
fession of Faith. But their views on this point did not dif- 
fer from the Confession of Faith more widely, than do the 
views of a majority of their triers from the same Confession, 
on points of doctrine equally important. This essential 
fact, Mr. Hill proposed to substantiate in his defence before 
the Synod, but he was barred the privilege, and they 
were deposed, though well known to these bodies as 
brethren of unquestioned Christian character, of deep Chris- 
tian experience, and of uncommon devotion to their Master's 
work. 

_ The fundamental and broad distinction between the doc- 
trine of sinless perfection as held and taught by Antino- 
mian Perfectionists, and the doctrine of Christian Perfection 
as held and taught at Oberlin, seems to be overlooked. 

What are regarded as the consequences of the Oberlin 
views of sanctincation are seized upon and magnified and 
brought forward, in many instances, as the doctrine itself. 

Misapprehension, and misrepresentation, on this subject, 
are working deep, extensive mischief. 

If error or heresy is preached and spread, let this error be 
met fairly and fully on tbe field of free discussion, and be 
exposed and put down. There are champions on the field 
of discussion among the Theologians who have concurred 
in condemning. Let them take up the pen of criticism and 
investigation, and prove by argument instead of denuncia- 
tion and ecclesiastical proscription that the charge is sus- 



74 FACTS AND EXPOSTULATION. 

tained. This course, the only fair and proper one, the 
Christian public have the right to demand. 

The Reviews by Dr. Woods, by the Troy Presbytery, and 
by the Geneva Presbytery, have been grave and labored 
notices of the Oberlin doctrine, and were extensively circu- 
lated in the religious periodicals of the day. To each of 
them a reply has been published ; but the publishers of the 
Reviews have denied their pages to the reply, and thus the 
public mind, to a wide extent, is kept in the dark respecting 
the real sentiments of a numerous class of Christian brethren 
who are denounced as heretics. 

The religious press deals out no such measures of injustice 
toward any other class of Christians. 

Romanism, Antinomian perfectionism, and other errors, 
are readily investigated. The sentiment held is correctly 
stated, and the arguments on which its advocates rely pub- 
lished, examined, and refuted. Both the heresy and the 
argument are studied. The reader can know them both ac- 
curately, and form his opinion. 

Why not pursue a similar course in respect to the Oberlin 
views of sanctification ? These views are pronounced to be 
a heresy, for which its advocates deserve and receive ex- 
communication. And the world sees that the excluded pos- 
sess a fair Christian character, and that many of them, to say 
the least, stand high in public estimation as brethren of 
marked piety and eminent success in their labors. 

Most clearly, then, should their error be accurately defined, 
and the argument of its advocates be sifted. The first ques- 
tion is, what is the sentiment itself ? Then, by what rea- 
soning is it sustained ? 

Both these questions are answered with great clearness and 
power by President Mahan, in his reply to Dr. Woods : and 
by Professor Finney, in his reply to the article from the 
Troy Presbytery : and more recently by Professor Cochran, 
in his reply to the article from the"Geneva Presbytery. Have 
these replies been answered ? No. While the Religious 
press has rung the changes through the land, to give promi- 
nence to what has been uttered against the Oberlin views, 
as settling the question, the articles in reply have been un- 
read and unanswered, and the policy is, to treat the whole 
affair with abiding neglect. 



WHO ARE NOT INTRUDERS. 75 

Such a course can be regarded as nothing ]ess than un- 
christian, discourteous,and a palpable dereliction from duty on 
the part of opposers, and will unavoidably be considered as a 
practical confession that a fair and full discussion would re- 
sult in their defeat : a tacit intimation that they dare not trust 
the Churches with the argument in support of the views con- 
demned. Hence it has become very extensively the fact, and 
noticed with astonishment and regret, that Ministers say less 
than formerly, upon the subject of sanctiflcation, and urge 
upon the Church, with diminished ardor, their duty to come 
up to a devoutly holy life. They even express their fears 
that if they say much about holiness, the people will run 
to perfection. 

This is a subject in which the churches and the world 
have the deepest interests. 

It is especially the duty of religious teachers, to give to 
their congregations the truth in this matter. And when they 
come out against any class of men, let their sentiments, and 
the argument in their support, be given to the people. To 
get up a false position and make a false issue on the ques- 
tion of obedience to God, is treason to Him and treason to 
his people. 

Would that religious teachers did but understand that, 
while they are passing by what they denominate the Oberlin 
heresy in a disrespectful, not to say contemptuous silence, 
disdaining to answer the arguments in its support, the blessed 
views on sanctiflcation which the Oberlin Brethren do in fact 
hold and inculcate, are, with certainty, making their way 
among Christians in this and other lands ; and that the refu- 
tation, if it ought to be given (and if it ought, it can), should 
not be delayed. 

A coming age, it is believed, will look upon the attitude 
respecting Christian perfection, now taken by leading Theo- 
logians of this country, with the mingled emotions of aston- 
ishment and grief. 

SEC. VIII. — OBERLIN BRETHREN NOT INTRUDERS, 

The Oberlin brethren are represented as intruders, both in 
respect to their Educational establishment, and their religious 
sentiments. The Presbyteries not only profess to regard 



76 AN EXTRAORDINARY POSITION. 

them as a new and distinct sect, but as foreigners, and at the 
same time deny them the rights and privileges which they 
freely concede to every foreign evangelical body. 

The Oberlin brethren are Congregationalists. Most of 
the Churches on the Reserve were originally organized as 
Congregationalists, composed chiefly of settlers from New 
England, and cherishing strong attachment to the Church 
polity of their father land. From the beginning these 
Churches have had the promise from their pastors, of pure 
Congregationalism, having no dependant connection with 
Presbyterian bodies. By the earnest solicitation of some of 
the oldest churches on the Reserve was the Congregational 
Association organized. Hence so far as church polity is 
respected, if there be any intrusion, it lies with the Presby- 
terians. They have encroached upon Congregationalism, 
and have failed to fulfil oft repeated promises, to give the 
churches the pure Congregationalism which they desired. 
And now these Presbyterians gravely accuse the Congrega- 
tionalists of preaching within their bounds, and bringing in a 
new sect to split the churches ! ! — a flagrant breach indeed, 
of ministerial courtesy and rights, for Congregationalists to 
preach at all within the bounds of a Presbyterian church — a 
church whose bounds spread over the whole territory in the 
middle and western States. Such a charge amounts to a 
demand that they should not preach at ail, but actually quit 
the whole field. 

SEC. IX. — AN EXTRAORDINARY POSITION. 

This is an extraordinary position for Christian ministers 
and Churches to occupy — a position which the Oberlin 
brethren have neither sought, nor taken. They love peace, 
and will yield much to prevent divisions. But they must 
preach Christ as he has revealed himself to them. And no 
inconsiderable portion of the members in all the Congrega- 
tional qjiurches, as also other churches on the western Re- 
serve, and in other sections of the land, agree with them. 
Occupying the same ground, harmony of feeling, and co- 
operation with Christians in other connections, is of great 
moment. The Faculty of the Oberlin Institute have, pre- 
vious to their union with it, acted ecclesiastically with Pres- 



THE SPIRIT AND AIMS OF OBERLIN. 77 

byterian and Congregational bodies. N^r can there be a 
rational doubt, when the literary character and moral worth 
of this Faculty, and the number of the students, and the 
facilities for a thorough and extended education, and the 
great and increasing influence which is put forth by the 
Institution, are all candidly and duly considered, that there 
should exist some proper form of ecclesiastical connection 
between them, and the Congregational, and New School 
Presbyterian bodies in the country. 

Why should not such a connection exist ? Who will as- 
sume the responsibility of preventing it ? Why should not 
the Associations and the Presbyteries recognize each other 
as Christian ministeis, and share in each other's counsel, and 
bless the Churches by a hallowed and peaceful influence. 

The peace of Zion, the dearest interests of education and 
religion demand, — the cries of the poor and of humanity, the 
wants of the teeming population of the West, the honor of 
our common country and our eommon brotherhood, decency 
and good sense, all, all demand — that the Oberlin brethren 
be no longer regarded as ecclesiastical outlaws. It is for 
Zion's sake — for truth's sake, that this appeal is made. Ec- 
clesiastical bodies, who have declared war of extermination 
against them, should count the cost. It is not a question be- 
tween two rival institutions, nor between rival religious 
sects, nor one to be gauged by local partialities and inter- 
ests ; but one which deeply, extensively and permanently 
affects Christian character in the ministry and in the churches. 
Shall a class of men, eminent for their moral and reli- 
gious worth, intellectual endowments and literary ac- 
quirements, , for their Christian character and enterprise, 
and self-denial in the cause of humanity, and Christian edu- 
cation, be denied Christian and ministerial fellowship, by the 
ecclesiastical and organized religious bodies of the country ? 

SEC. X. — THE SPIRIT AND AIMS OF OBERLIN NOT CONFINED 
TO ONE PLACE. 

Who does not see that this war of extermination cannot 
succeed ? The Oberlin Institute was not commenced, nor 
has it hitherto been sustained, by ecclesiastical patronage. 
8 



78 THE SPIRIT AND AIMS OF OBERLIN. 

It has lived thus far, and spread itself on the smiles of God, 
in answer to the prayers and the sympathies of warm and 
bleeding hearts, widely scattered, who love Zion, and are 
ready to toil for the truth. The Oberlin brethren, as indivi- 
duals, might consent, as it respects ecclesiastical connections, 
for the sake of peace, to be annihilated. But this would not 
satisfy the public mind, nor meet its wants, nor quench the 
thirsting of very many souls for the waters of life ; nor quell 
the deep and swelling solicitude for a better order of things. 
These devoted men are not their own. They are the Lord's,and 
feel bound to go forward in the accomplishment of the great 
work to which they are called. Even should they give up 
their commissions as the messengers of the Lord of Hosts, — 
dismiss their students, — sell their buildings and lands, — and 
cease all further labor to train young men and women for the 
service of Christ in the world's redemption, the Oberlin spirit 
would not be quenched ; the work there begun would be re- 
sumed at some other point, and by other hands ; the great 
object at which they have thus far, with so much singleness 
of purpose, and with such commendable zeal, prosecuted, 
would still be sought with a deathless faith, and an indomi- 
table courage. 

Let them still continue to seek peace with their neighbors 
by every rational and scriptural means, — if the ecclesiastical 
bodies persist in the refusal to recognize them as brethren, 
and to extend to them the comity and fellowship extended 
to all other Congregational bodies, and which it has ever 
been their boast and their glory to maintain, and thus prac- 
tically deny the doctrine on which they have stood fur forty 
years, and which has given them their gigantic growth, they 
do it on their own responsibility ; and the distractions which 
must inevitably follow, will, by a discerning public, be 
ascribed to the proper source. But who can count the cost 
to bleeding Zion, suffering humanity, Christian character and 
fellowship ? 

It is often stated that we have not at the West and in 
Ohio the Congregationalism of New England. So far as the 
plan of union has been adopted, this is a fact, the practical 
operation of which has been to place the Congregational 
Churches under the dictation of a higher body, and they are 



THE PREVENTION OF DIVISIONS. 79 

not strictly, or purely Congregational. But the Churches in 
connection with the Western Reserve Association are entirely, 
purely and strictly Congregational, after the purest form of 
the Puritan Fathers. 

It is said that the Oberlin Institute introduces its own stu- 
dents into the ministry, and in this respect differs from other 
theological seminaries. The students here are licensed by 
the association of which a portion of the Faculty are mem- 
bers, or by other ecclesiastical bodies as convenience and 
preference may direct. 

These remarks respecting Oberlin have been here intro- 
duced in connection with Christian union on account of the 
charge preferred against it as schismatic, and from a con- 
sciousness that the public are not correctly informed of its 
position and operations. It is of great moment that the 
churches should be united in the love and in the practice of 
the truth. Nor is it proper that those who in fact are the 
cause of divisions, should escape censure by charging the of- 
fence upon the innocent. 

SEC XI. ALL ARE INTERESTED IN THE PREVENTION OF 

DIVISIONS. 

It is the injunction of Paul, mark those who cause divi- 
sions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have 
learned, that is, which I have taught you. By divisions he 
means dissensions, parties, factions. By offences he means 
scandals ; or that which gives just occasion for others to 
fall into sin. 

The difficulty in following this counsel lies in the purpose 
of each that his own opinions are the standard, and he in- 
fers of course that those who differ from him cause divi- 
sions. 

Under these circumstances, the correct course is to hold 
yourself open to conviction under the power and progress of 
free investigation. This will lead all Christians to unite in 
the essentials of Christian doctrine and practice ; and for the 
residue, strange indeed if they cannot bear with one another 
in love. 

In the present case, and in these times, when the alarm 
cry is division, division, schism, schism, heresy, heresy ; and 
non-intercourse and excommunication are proclaimed and 



80 THE PREVENTION OF DIVISIONS. 

enforced among Christians ; surely there is a demand for the 
calm inquiry the spirit of meekness, before any man, or 
class of men in charged with the guilt of having troubled Is- 
rael, of having sought and caused divisions. Uninspired men 
are not infallible. Teachers, however learned and good ; 
Theological Seminaries, however well endowed and officer- 
ed : Ecclesiastical bodies, how venerable soever, and though 
having long occupied the ground as umpire, have no author- 
ity, human or divine, when their opinions are questioned and 
their course scanned, and both brought out and canvassed in 
the light of truth and fact, to complain, to censure, and much 
less to denounce and to exscind. In an age of free inquiry, 
free inquiry will be had. And the very fact that you shrink 
from it and attempt to sustain yourself chiefly by human au- 
thority, is strong presumptive evidence that you are on the 
wrong side. Your covenants, compacts or standards are 
neither a shield nor authority, for yourself, nor for any one, 
except so|far as they correspond with the principles of the Gos- 
pel, and are adapted to the exigencies of the people for whose 
Benefit they are designed. And they are all open to a strict 
but fair scrutiny. 

Shall it then be said that to enter upon this examination 
is schismatic? — that to express views differing somewhat 
from those put forth in the Standards, and generally received 
by the Churches, is to seek division, and to rend the body of 
Christ ? May not men think for themselves upon religious 
truth ? Is there no room for improvement in the views and 
practices of the Church ? When it is proposed in a large ec- 
clesiastical convention that the Confession of Faith and the 
form of Government of the Presbyterian Church be approv- 
ed, as a system in which the Convention has entire and full 
confidence, and the lay members of the body object, on the 
ground that a large number of the Churches represented in it, 
take material exceptions againt this Confession, is it jus! and 
fair to represent these men as schismatics, seeking divisions, 
and distracting the Churches ? Surely it is time for men to 
think, and to fallback upon first principles, and to cling to 
the Gospel, and to that Christian liberty which this Gospel 
guarantees to all. 

The slander so industriously circulated that the people out 



THE PREVENTION OF DIVISIONS. 81 

of New England, or at the West, do not know enough to gov- 
ern themselves in church matters, has not yet induced them 
to relinquish the right of private judgment, and to think only 
as others think, to speak only as others speak, and to move 
only as they are moved. The present organized religious 
bodies have their rights. Many of them have deservedly a 
strong hold on the affections and on the confidence of the 
public. They are accomplishing much good, and neither 
wisdom nor benevolence demands that they should be assailed 
with the view to their subversion, nor to counteract or di- 
minish their usefulness. Neither should they assume that 
wisdom is theirs and will die with them ; that their opinions 
and measures are above scrutiny ; and, as if occupying the 
seat of Judgment, assail others for their extinction. 

The land is not exclusively theirs. Their members may 
indeed be found in every part of it, and in this sense their 
ecclesiastical bounds may include the whole of it. But they 
have no authority to regard others, on the same field, as in- 
truders, and to represent them as disorganizers, sowing dis- 
cord, splitting the Churches, because they do not coincide 
with them in all their views, nor co-operate with them in all 
their measures. Neither can they refuse fellowship to those 
whom Christ has received without a flagrant violation of 
their solemn vows to Him. In other words, Christian 
Brethren have no right to take up arms against each other. 
Nor has any ecclesiastical body, or any individual however 
talented and learned and pious, though the idol of his fol- 
lowers, and an oracle for wisdom, the right to propose any test, 
which shall separate from each other, the real children of God — 
which shall make a breach between real Christians — which 
shall throw the Churches in such an attitude that they will 
not hear a Preacher unless he bears a particular designation 
or is from a particular school in theology, thus giving them- 
selves up to the control of prejudice, and consenting to wear 
the collar of a religious party. 



8* 



CHAPTER V. 
HOLY LIVING. 

SEC. I. — THE ACHAN. 

The recent attitude of Ecclesiastical bodies and Churches 
towards those who have embraced the sentiment that it is 
their privilege as well as duty to live in a state of mind wholly 
conformed to God, is truly among the wonderful things of 
the present century, and demands examination. There is the 
right and the wrong in this matter. There is great guilt con- 
nected with it, and there should be deep grief and great search- 
ings of heart. 

Beyond question Israel will be troubled till the Achan be 
searched out, and be put away. 

SEC. II. — ATTITUDE OF CHURCHES. 

Look at the Churches in reference to their Covenants. 
They all engage and promise to love and serve God with all 
their heart, to commit themselves in a cheerful surrender of 
soul and body,'person and estate, to be the Lord's, and to walk 
towards one another and towards all who are without, as 
the Gospel directs. No Christian Church would be willing 
to place their standard lower than this. It is the correct 
standard. 

They require of all whom they receive to take the same 
religious oath, and to come under the same bonds. 

How do the Pastors and the leading members treat this 
Covenant ? 

1. The Pastor in his sermons, and in his other communi- 
cations, takes the ground that it is not expected that Chris- 
tians will live in a state of entire and perfect obedience — that 
they will all go on through life, groaning under the body of 



RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 83 

sin and death. And when he quotes or teaches the Cate- 
chism of the Westminster Assembly he says, " No man is 
able either of himself, or by any grace received in this life, 
perfectly to keep the Commandments of God ; hut doth daily 
break them in thought, vjord and deed" 

2. The Brethren in the Conference and in the prayer- 
meeting, echo the same sentiment and views, and say to the 
freshly admitted members — We expect that yourohedience will 
be fitful — that you will to a greater or less extent backslide. 
Even Paul found a law in his members warring against the law 
of his mind, so that when he would do good, evil was pres- 
ent with him; all of which is confirmed in their prayers; 
and they assure the new convert that he. but deceives him- 
self if he expects anything different. 

3. Members professing to live up to their covenant, and 
expressing their joy in the Holy Ghost, and their peace 
in believing, are censured and sometimes cut off by the 
church, and this without any charge or proof against them 
of immorality — censured and excommunicated for declaring 
their own consciousness that they do what the church re- 
quires them to do. 

4. Churches refuse to receive applicants for membership, 
if they declare it to be their privilege, and what, by Divine 
aid, they expect to do, to walk before God in all the com- 
mandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. 

5. These churches will not hear and sustain a minister who 
urges upon the members the entire fulfilment of their cove- 
nant vows ; that they not only ought to do as God re- 
quhes of them, but that it is their privilege to do this ; that 
they may be complete in Christ and in the full enjoyment of 
his love ; that they may seek to do the whole will of God 
in the expectation of success in the labor. 

Such is the attitude of the great mass of the churches in 
reference to the doctrine of holy living. 

SEC. III. POSITION OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 

1. Presbyteries, associations and synods, refuse to have 
any ecclesiastical connection whatever with brethren who 
hold that perfection in holy living in this life may be sought, 
with the rational expectation of attaining it. 



84 RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. 

2. They instruct the Churches in their connection to do the 
same. 

3. They depose from the ministry, and exscind from their 
bodies, members who hold and sustain the above views. 

The following are among the cases : 

The Rochester Presbytery expelled from their body the 
Rev. Mr. Sedge wick, whose ministerial labors have been 
greatly blessed, and whose Christian character is deservedly 
high. 

The whole Faculty of the Oberlin Institute. 

The General Association of the Western Reserve and the 
minor bodies which compose it. 

The Genesee Consociation. 

The Rev. Henry Belden and the Rev. Wm. Hill, members 
of the North River Presbytery. Mr. Belden was subse- 
quently received as a member of the Lorain Association. 

The following document gives a concise view of -the mat- 
ter, with the opinions and reasons of the Association in sup- 
port of their course, and a fair presentation of Christian duty 
and practice in such cases : — 

In discharging the duty devolved upon us, we would first 
state the principle on which the act of the Association was 
based. It is this. Every Church Judicatory, in all authoriz- 
ed acts, echoes the revealed and known will of Christ. As 
the acknowledged exponents of his will only are they author- 
itative upon the Church. Whenever any ecclesiastical body 
introduces an individual into the ministry in conformity to 
the revealed will of Christ, such body cannot depose such 
individual from the sacred office, except for reasons which 
Christ himself has revealed as ground of deposition. What 
God hath joined together man cannot put asunder. Conse- 
quently, when an act of deposition has been passed upon an 
individual for reasons which Christ has not revealed as 
ground of deposition, and especially for reasons which he has 
prohibited, as such ground, such act is null and void. The 
individual subject to it is not deposed. He is the subject of 
an unauthorized persecution, and every Church Judicatory, 
together with the entire Church, is under the most solemn 
obligation, to receive and treat him as a minister of Jesus 
Christ. Upon this principle the entire Protestant reformation 
is based. With it that great movement must stand or fall. 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 85 

The entire Protestant Christendom, with all their churches 
and ministers, are excommunicated from the church of Rome, 
If that church has authority for her acts of excommunica- 
tion and deposition, Protestants have no authority to act as 
churches and ministers of Jesus Christ. The ground taken 
by Luther and the fathers of the Reformation, in respect to 
the bulls of excommunication and deposition which were 
thundered against them from the Vatican was this : Such acts 
are for reasons which Christ has not revealed as ground of 
excommunication and deposition, but for reasons which he 
has prohibited as such ground. Therefore we are not depos- 
ed and excommunicated. We are still churches and minis- 
ters of Jesus Christ. The validity of this principle we must 
acknowledge as universally binding, or cease to be Protes- 
tants. Now the ground assumed by the Association in the 
case of Brother Belden is this. The act of deposition to 
which he was subjected, was for reasons which Christ has 
not revealed as ground of deposition, but for reasons prohi- 
bited by him as such ground. Therefore he is not deposed. 
He is still a minister of Christ. As such we are sacredly 
bound to receive, and do receive him. 

That the public may be able to give a correct judgment in 
the case, as to where the wrong lies, whether at the door of 
Presbytery or of the Association, we will next give a concise 
history of the transactions which led to the case of deposi- 
tion, and then give the reasons for the decision of the Asso- 
ciation. 

STATEMENT OF FACTS. 

At the meeting of the Synod of New York and New Jer- 
sey, held in the city of New York, in Oct.. 1841, the commit- 
tee on Bills and Overtures presented some resolutions on the 
subject of " Perfectionism," in which there appeared to be an 
attempt to confound the doctrine of Sanctification with An- 
tinomian Perfectionism. Brs. Hill and Belden entered their 
protest against them. Whereupon Synod " resolved that the 
Presbytery of North River be directed to take order concern- 
ing error within their bounds.'' 

At the next stated meeting of Presbytery, held at Pough- 
keepsie, in April, 1842, a committee was appointed to confer 
with Brs. Hill and Belden. The committee met with them, 
and stated that they did not wish to have any discussion with 
them, but merely desired that they should give them written 



86 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 



answers to certain questions which they then handed them in 
writing. 

The following is a copy of the questions with their an- 
swers appended to each one. 

" The Committee appointed by Presbytery to confer with 
Brother Belden and Brother Hill, would kindly request their 
candid and prayerful answers to the following questions. 

Question 1st. — Do you believe that a state of entire sancti- 
fication or sinless perfection, is attainable in this life ? 

Answer. — We believe that a state of entire sanctification, 
such as is consistent with growth in grace, with imperfection 
in knowledge, and consequent liability to error in judgment 
and practice, is attainable in this life. We understand entire 
sanctification to be nothing short of a full compliance with 
the claims of the Moral Law, which requires us to love God 
with all our powers — that is, to love him as much as we can. 
To ask, therefore, whether entire sanctification is attainable, 
is the same as to ask whether w T e can love God as much as 
we can, which we certainly believe. But then we place its 
attainability not only on man's natural ability to do all his 
duty, but chiefly on Gospel provisions. 

Question 2d. — Do you believe that the sacred Scriptures 
furnish to the Christian any just grounds to say that he has a 
rational expectation of attaining to a state of sinless perfec- 
tion in this life ? 

Answer. — We do not know that the Scriptures furnish to 
the Christian any grounds to say what expectations he has 
on any subject. But we believe they as fully authorize us to 
expect to be cleansed from all unrighteousness as to be for- 
given. " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to for- 
give us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
It is not only our piivilege to pray that God would " sanctify 
us wholly, and preserve us blameless unto the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ," but also to indulge the expectation that He 
who is faithful, and hath called us " will do it." 

Question 3d. — Have you ever taught from the pulpit, that 
Entire Sanctification is attainable in this life, in such a sense 
as to warrant the expectation that any ever will attain this 
state ? 

Answer. — We have endeavored to encourage Christians to 
look to Christ to be sanctified wholly in the present life. We 
have exhorted them to pray in faith for this blessing. " For 
whatsoever is not of faith is sin." And expectation, we re- 
gard as one element of the prayer of faith. In fact, we know 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. 87 

of no other way to make Christians feel their obligation to be 
" holy as God is holy," or to induce them to strive to " walk 
before God and be perfect," than to urge upon them the prac- 
ticability of obeying these commands. In no other way can 
we hope to secure their sincere and determined efforts after 
these attainments ; so long as there are these two acknow- 
ledged principles in the philosophy of the human mind, which 
have been well expressed by another. 

1st. We never can feel under moral obligation to do a thing 
which we believe impossible to be done. 

2d. No person, such is the relation between will and belief, 
can put forth a volition to do a thing, which at the same time 
he believes impossible to be done. 

Question Ath. — Do you believe that the standards of our 
church teach the doctrine that Entire Sanctiflcation is attain- 
able in this life 1 

Answer. — The Confession of Faith, Chap. 5, Sec. 5, says 
" This corruption of nature during this life, doth remain in 
those that are regenerated ; and although it be through Christ 
pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and all the motions 
thereof, are truly and properly sin." And the Larger Cate- 
chism, ques. 149, says : " No man is able, either of himself, 
or by any grace received in this life, perfectly to keep the 
commandments of God." We understand these as denying 
the attainability of Entire Sanctiflcation in the present life. 
But the Bible, which is the ultimate standard of the Church, 
we believe, teaches it. 

Question 5th. — Do you feel still, conscientiously bound pub- 
licly to teach and defend the position that Christians actually 
do, in this life , attain to sinless perfection, contrary to the 
Confession of Faith, and views of your brethren 1 

Answer. — We believe that Moses while in the mount was 
not continually sinning against God, neither was Paul while 
caught up to the third heaven, and probably not through 
much of his Christian life. In several passages we under- 
stand him to assert his Entire Sanctiflcation, and nowhere 
to deny it. And if a Christian should now say to us he had 
the witness of the Spirit " that he was righteous — that God 
had cleansed him from all unrighteousness," and that having 
a " conscience void of offence," he lived in the constant exer- 
cise of perfect love, which is the fulfilling of the Moral Law, 
we have no right to question his testimony, and declare him 
self-deceived or pharisaical, but would be bound to magnify 



88 STATEMENT OF FACTS. 

the grace of God, on his behalf, until we see something in his 
character or conduct, to invalidate his testimony. 

But if an individual should absolutely and unqualifiedly 
assert, I have not sinned for so many weeks, months, or years, 
we should think him presumptuous. God may have seen 
in him exercises which did not arrest his attention, and the 
most he is warranted to say, is, "My heart does not condemn 
me." We feel it our duty to preach in accordance with these 
views. 

Question 6th. — Do you believe that justification is in differ- 
ent degrees — in other words, that a person is no farther justi- 
fied than he is sanctified ? 

Answer. — We believe that when a person exercises genuine 
repentance for all his past sins, they are all forgiven and his 
justification is complete. But it does not appear to us that 
justification can be prospective, or that sins can be pardoned 
before they are committed or repented of — for this would im- 
ply the virtual abrogation of moral law with reference to the 
Christian. When a child of God sins, he falls under his Fa- 
ther's displeasure, and remains there until he repents, though 
he does not fall back into the condition of an unregenerate 
sinner. 

Question 1th. — " If a Christian once attains entire sanctifi- 
cation, and as a consequence, entire justification, do you be- 
lieve he may become sinful again, and thus fall from a state 
of entire sanctification and also of justification ? 

Answer. — We believe that by entire sanctification a Chris- 
tian's moral agency is not in the least impaired. He is just 
as capable of sinning as he was before. 

The above answers are respectfully submitted to the Com- 
mittee. 

Henry Belden. 
William Hill. 

The Committee immediately reported the questions and 
answers to Presbytery. The Presbytery then referred the 
whole case to Synod for adjudication. 

In October following, the case came before Synod by refer- 
ence. Synod refused to take action on it, and referred it back 
to Presbytery, for them to take such action as they might 
deem proper. 

At the next stated meeting of Presbytery the whole matter 
was indefinitely postponed, with the understanding that no- 
thing more should be done about it. 

About two months after, there was a small meetin of 



STATEMENT OF FACTS. S9 

Presbytery, at which it was resolved to cite these brethren 
to appear and answ T er to charges. They accordingly appear- 
ed before their brethren, and the following charges were 
tabled : 

" Whereas, The Rev. Henry Belden, and the Rev. Win. 
Hill, members of this Presbytery, are charged by public fame 
with having embraced and publicly advocated the doctrine 
that believers may, and that some actually do, attain to sin- 
less perfection or to entire sanctification in this life — There- 
fore, 

Resolved, That they be, and hereby are, charged, 

1st. With rejecting the doctrine of Sanctification as taught 
in the Confession of Faith, chapter 13, section 2. 

Proof. — Answers to questions proposed by Presbytery. 

2d. With a violation of their ordination vows in continuing 
to retain their connection, as Ministers, with the Presbyte- 
rian Church, after having rejected an article of our faith so 
prominent and so important as that on the subject of Sancti- 
fication." 

A true copy. S. Ma.ndeville. 

Stated Clerk. 

When these charges w T ere presented, Br. B. stated that he 
believed the doctrine of Sanctification, and rejected the article 
of the Confession of Faith referred to in the charge, and that 
he could establish his belief from the Bible. Immediately 
Rev. B. F. W — arose and said with vehemence — " We have 
nothing to do with the Bible in this case. It is with the 
Confession of Faith that we have to do." 

This sentiment, as expressed by Mr. W., prevailed, and was 
insisted on both by the Presbytery and the Synod through the 
whole trial, to have been true. This is shown in the letter 
of Br. Ludlow, given below. 

The Presbytery held a meeting in August to try the accus- 
ed. In answer to the first charge, they both replied that they 
did reject the article of the Confession of Faith referred to, 
because they regarded it as contrary to the Word of God. 
To'the second charge they pleaded not guilty. The Presbytery 
then decided that they were guilty of the first charge on 
their own confession, and of the second by a vote of nine to 
six. 

From this decision in respect to the second charge, " a vio- 
lation of ordination vows," the first being allowed, they ap- 
pealed to Synod. The appeal, by a small majority, was not 
sustained, and the case referred back to Presbytery, with or- 
9 



90 THE FINAL ISSUE. 

ders to take issue upon it ; that is, to execute the sentence of 
deposition. On this decision we would simply remark, that 
there is nothing in the vows taken by a Presbyterian Minister 
at his ordination, which either directly or indirectly binds 
him to leave that church, when, in the study of the Bible, he 
" rejects any article of the Confession of Faith." We may 
safely challenge the world to show that 4 this affirmation is 
false. 

THE FINAL ISSUE. 

This will be seen by the following extract from the Min- 
utes of the Presbytery of North River, held at Milton, Ulster 
Co., N. Y., April 17th, 1844. 

" Resolved, That the case of Messrs. Belden and Hill be tak- 
en up, and they be called upon to say whether they have re- 
considered their views on the subject of Sanctification, and 
renounced their errors. 

In pursuance of this resolution, they both stated their adher- 
ence to their former views. 

The Moderator then charged the Presbytery, &c. 

Presbytery then united in prayer with Brethren Ludlow 
and Silliman for Divine direction, and after the members were 
heard, adopted the following preamble and resolution : 

" Whereas, Synod, at the last meeting, sent back the matter 
of reference in the case of Messrs. Belden and Hill to this 
Presbytery, for final adjudication, it is therefore moved' that 
we proceed to issue the case. And whereas, Synod enjoin- 
ed upon Messrs. Belden and Hill that without delay they 
solemnly and prayerfully re-consider their views on the 
subject of Sanctification and renounce their errors : And 
whereas, Messrs. Belden and Hill have given no evidence to 
Presbytery that their views on the subject of Sanctification 
have materially changed since the action of Presbytery in the 
case : And whereas, Synod, at their last meeting, wished it to 
be distinctly understood that they consider the doctrine of 
Sinless Perfection, or Entire Sanctification, to be subversive 
of the purity as well as peace of the Church, and that the 
preaching of said doctrine cannot be tolerated on the part of 
any Minister in their connection : And whereas, Presbytery 
are fully convinced that any further %elay in coming to an 
ultimate decision will not result in a change of sentiment on 
their part : 

" Therefore, Resolved, That Brethren Belden and Hill be 
and they are hereby deposed from the Gospel Ministry." 



THE FINAL ISSUE. 



91 



Seven Ministers and four Elders voted ? for, and five Elders 
against, the above resolution. 

In the light of the above facts and statements, the public 
will perceive the positive reasons for the act of deposition to 
which these brethren were subjected. We cite the following 
testimony to show what was their Ministerial and Christian 
character in other respects. 

In the Synod in New York, in October, 1842, Br. Ludlow 
stated that Brs. Hill and Belden had been baptized of the Holy 
Ghost, and that if the Saviour should say to our Presbytery, 
" Which of you shall betray me 1 n there was not one of the 
brethren but would apply it to himself sooner than to either 
of them. 

In the Synod in 1843, at Newark, the same brother remark- 
ed that they were devoted and self-denying men. 

In the same meeting, Rev. B. C. Magie, of Dover, New 
Jersey, stated that he was very intimately acquainted with 
Br. B., and had been for years. He was not particularly ac- 
quainted with Br. H. He said that it was evident to all Br. 
B.'s friends, that he was in a much higher state of spirituality 
than when he entered the ministry — that his friends rejoiced 
in it; but when they asked him what he called the state, they 
were grieved at the terms he used. He spoke of Br. B.'s 
labors as being more abundant since the change in him, and 
referred to his custom of preaching on board of steam- 
boats — seeking out the poor and degraded in the jail, the poor- 
house, &c. 

Special attention is now invited to the following letter 
from the Rev. H. G. Ludlow, of Poughkeepsie, the brother 
who is said to have drafted the resolution of deposition. It 
was written a short time before the deed was perpetrated, and 
in view of such a dreaded consummation. We have italicis- 
ed a few sentences, to which reference will be had hereafter. 

Poughkeepsie, Feb. 1, 1844. 
My Dear Brother Belden will, I know, believe me, when I 
say that I love him, and sincerely desire his best welfare. 
Through all your trials in Presbytery, I have stood by your 
side, and interposed myself between you and an ultimate ex- 
cision. And it was not, as you know, because I harmonized 
with you in the sentiment that you or any other man in the 
world was sinless — but because I hoped that second sober 
thought, mature reflection and a ripe experience, would lead 
you to adopt the views which are gener&Jly maintained by 



92 



THE FINAL ISSUE, 



your brethren in the Presbytery, and I may say the church at 
large. 

The position in which I am now placed by the decision of 
the Synod, is one of painful interest, and leaves to your Pres- 
bytery no other alternative, in case you persist in avowing 
your opposition to the Confession of Faith on the subject of 
sanctification, but your deposition. My heart bleeds while it 
anticipates such a possibility, and shrinks from the infliction 
of the last exscinding blow. But still it must fall, unless you 
retract. 

I have lately seen a letter from Br. Mahan, in reference to 
this matter, which I fear may tend to confirm you in the 
opinion that the Synod did wrong in ordering the Presbytery 
to proceed even to excision, because you ivere condemned, not for 
an offence against the Bible, but against the Confession of Faith. 
But, dear Brother, would you, were a member of your church 
to adopt Universalist or Unitarian views, contrary, of course, 
to the Confession of Faith adopted by the church, and to 
which he had subscribed, feel yourself bound to argue the 
matter with him at his trial, on the ground of its unscriptu- 
rality — or would you say at once, after taking the prescribed 
steps, you must be excommunicated unless you repent ? The 
fact is, our standard is, unless the Presbyterian Church alter their 
views of truth as really in their opinion the word of God as the 
Bible is. Suppose I assert the doctrine of the Trinity as a 
doctrine of the Bible, and write it down in a creed, is it not as 
really the word of God as the Bible itself, provided it be 
taught in the Scriptures ? It is true the Bible is the only in- 
fallible rule ; but if a truth be copied from that book into a 1 
system of faith, it does not cease to be Bible because trans- 
ferred. The Synod condemned you, therefore, because they 
believed you had rejected a Bible doctrine, and did not enter 
into a discussion, as you would not with a Socinian or a Uni- 
versalist who denied two of the prominent articles of his 
creed. Now whether they err or not as to the truth, they do 
not certainly err in treating you as they have done, provid- 
ed they believe that the system which they hold, or rather, 
the article, is Bible truth, and you deny it. They may also 
err in the degree of censure they inflict, but you must not say 
that they have done so in refusing to discuss the matter 
when they feel as they do, that there ought to be no doubt on 
the subject. 

Having tried to remove any unfavorable opinion you may 
have formed in reference to the proceedings of the Synod, I 



THE FINAL ISSUE. 93 

now would say a word, my precious brother, on the subject 
of your future course. It is very obvious that there are but 
three ways you can take. 1. Unite with some other body. 
2. Confess and forsake your present views. 3. Be deposed. 

1 . If you do not like either of the last two, why not, my 
dear brother, take your dismission, and connect yourself with 
the body to which Br. Underwood belongs, the majority of 
which particular association harmonize, I understand, with 
you. Rather than proceed to extremities, I presume our 
Presb3^tery would dismiss you even in this stage of the pro- 
ceedings. And why will you compel those who love you to 
do the painful work of exposition ? 

2. I would, of course, prefer that you would so modify your 
views as to render any separation unnecessary. And ought 
you not, my precious brother, to be jealous of yourself now, 
lest in trying to stand perpendicular, you lean backwards ? 
Can it be, dear Henry, that one who is comparatively a child 
in years, in knowledge, and in experience, maybe certain that 
he is right, when he goes against the voice of the most intel- 
ligent and godly men the world ever knew 1 The more I 
read the biographies and the productions of such men as 
Owen, Flavel, Baxter, Leighton, Usher, Edwards, Brainerd, 
Payson, and I may add, my own heart, the more I am con- 
vinced that there is an affirmation wrapped up in that ques- 
tion which settles the imperfection of man. " Who can say 
I have made my heart clean ? I am pure from my sin ? " And 
cannot my dear brother consent to take one step back, and 
say not " I am without sin," but with the apostle, 1 Cor. iv 
5, ' For although I am not conscious to myself of sin, yet am 
1 not hereby justified,' &c, &c. Henry, Scott, Bloomfield, 
Adam Clarke, Barnes, all agree that this is the true transla- 
tion. Here we all go with you. We believe that a man may 
live without the upbraidings of conscience for known sin, 
while we dare not affirm that God sees no sin in us. Can- 
not you and dear Br. Hill abandon your offensive terms and 
remain with us ? There is not a member of our dear Pres- 
bytery that would not rejoice. We love you tenderly. We 
have great confidence in your piety, and it would send a wave of 
joy through every heart. 

f# But, 3, If you adopt neither of these alternatives, you per- 
ceive, my brother, that the Presbytery has but one course it 
can take. May God, in infinite mercy, prevent it ! It seems 
to me that you ought seriously to review your position. 
I ask you not to sin against your conscience, and make 
9* 



94 THE FINAL ISSUE. 

shipwreck of what you believe to be the faith, but modestly, 
and with child-like humility, to inquire whether there is 
not room for a doubt that you are right. My best love to 
your dear wife. If Br. Hill be in Newburgh, or wherever he 
is, please let him see this. 

Most affectionately your brother, 

K. G. Ludlow. 

The reader will be interested in the following reply : 

Washingtonville, Monday, March 11, 1844. 

Beloved Brother — I received your letter more than a 
month since. I did not think when I received it that it 
would be so long before I replied. When I first read it, I 
thought of answering it immediately, but on a little reflection I 
thought best to wait awhile, and afford time for deliberation. 

I have been employed the greater part of the time for the 
last five or six weeks in a protracted meeting, and I postponed 
answering some letters on hand till I got a little leisure. I 
esteem myself honored by your expressions of Christian affec- 
tion, while I feel myself unworthy of them. But be assured, 
dear brother, that your feelings are reciprocated. I have seen 
many things in you which have manifested the Spirit of our 
blessed Master, and surely I ought to love that Spirit 
wherever it appears, and I trust that I always shall. You 
say that you regard yourself and the Presbytery as placed in 
a position of painful interest by the action of Synod, and that 
there remains in consequence of that action but one alterna- 
tive, either a retraction on my part, or my deposition by the 
Presbytery. 

If it be so that the decision of Synod has laid this necessity 
upon us, then indeed our case is a hard one. As I view the 
matter (and you will pardon me for stating my view of it), 
such a necessity requires either me or the Presbytery to do 
wrong. Either I must deny what I regard as precious Bible 
truth, or the Presbytery must cast me out of the ministry and 
out of the visible fold of Christ, for my adherence to this 
Bible truth. I say, this is the way that I view it. and I hope 
you will take no offence at my plainness of speech. 

But does such a necessity exist ? My beloved brother, let 
us get down at the Saviour's feet and ask Him if it be so. 
Of course it is for me to decide whether to retract — but on 
the supposition that I cannot, is it the duty of Presbytery, or 
is it right for them, to depose me from the ministry, and ex- 
communicate me from the Church ? It is right and duty for 



THE FINAL ISSUE. 95 

them to do so, if it be the Saviour's will — and it is not right if 
it is not his will. Now what is his will in the case % It 
seems to me that one or two considerations will throw some 
light upon that point. If the Saviour blesses me with 
spiritual gifts and holds communion with my soul, it proves 
that I am united to Him as a branch to the vine and a sheep 
of the fold. His manifestations of his love to me make it my 
duty to confess Him before men and to unite with my 
brethren in celebrating his dying love. And is it not the 
duty of all my brethren in Christ to receive me, when they 
believe that He receives me 1 

Again, if I have the seals of God's approbation upon my 
ministry, if He blesses my administrations more and more, 
both in the conversion and building up of souls, is not this 
evidence that I am a Minister of Christ " called of God as 
was Aaron V 1 And if this be so ; if I have the continued 
proofs of the Saviour's approbation as a Minister, is it right, 
is it duty in my brethren, to cast me out from the holy office ? 
My brother, the tears start to my eyes while I write. I feel 
as though I could weep — but let me ask, ought not my 
brethren to pause ere they do so great a thing ? Is it not 
possible that they may go counter to the Saviour's will'? 

Even though the Synod be displeased, it is better to abide 
their displeasure than to offend Christ, and let me add, in the 
words of our Lord, than to " offend one of Christ's little 
ones." 

I could say many more things on this subject, if I should 
give free scope to my feelings ; but I must close. 

My health is poor at present I think my lungs are some- 
what seriously affected. It may be that I am mistaken as 
to my symptoms, for I have not consulted any physician, but 
a protracted hoarseness, a cough, a pain in my breast, debility, 
and some little of night sweats, have led me to think that it 
would be nothing surprising if I should ere long receive a 
summons to appear before the great Head of the Church. 
But blessed be his name, I am enabled to contemplate such 
an event with calmness. I feel that I am his and not my own. 
One passage of scripture has run in my mind and been very 
precious to me of late — " Who his own self bare our sins 
in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin 
should live unto righteousness : by whose stripes ye were 
healed."— 1 Pet. ii. 24. 

Remember me affectionately to your dear wife. 
Your brother in the Lord, 

Henry Belden. 



96 THE FINAL ISSUE. 

From the above facts and statements the following conciu* 
sions are undeniably evident. 

1. The act of deposition under consideration was passed 
for no moral delinquency whatever, delinquency either expressed, 
implied, or imputed. These brethren are acknowledged even 
by their deposers to have done nothing, nor to have embraced 
any sentiments, by which their piety has been marred, their 
zeal in the cause of Christ lessened, or their communion and 
fellowship with the Head of the Church in the least inter- 
rupted. 

2. It is perfectly evident that Presbytery had no difficulty 
at all with the spiritual state of these brethren, and conse- 
quently with the spirit which they were aiming to induce in 
all over whom they should gain an influence. It was only 
with the terms with which they chose to designate that state. 
If they would only lay aside their Ci offensive terms," they 
could still have a standing in the Church and ministry. 
Thus it is perfectly evident, that they were "made offenders 
for a word," and for nothing else. Has Christ authorized 
deposition for such a reason ? Shall the Church sanction 
deposition for such reasons ? Discipline is rendered univer- 
sally contemptible, when perverted to such unhallowed ends. 
Such has in fact been the result of this perversion already. 
"Who does not know that ecclesiastical censures, and even 
excommunication and deposition, do not, to any great extent, 
subject individuals to disgrace in public estimation ? 

3. The act of arrest and deposition was executed upon them 
when, as is acknowledged by their deposers, they were en- 
gaged in " labors more abundant" and self-denying in the 
cause of Christ, and when the Head of the Church was 
crowning their labors with unwonted success. With the ac- 
knowledged " epistles of Christ" in their hands, " epistles 
known and read of all men," the Presbytery dared to step in 
and declare, that such men, with such acknowledged epistles, 
are not the Ministers of Christ. We affirm that Christ has 
never conferred authority for such acts on any judicatory 
whatever. 

4. The act under consideration was passed upon these 
brethren simply and exclusively for holding sentiments, in 
embracing which, and in connection with which, their 
spirituality and self-denying labors are acknowledged to have 
been greatly increased, and in connection with which they 
had been " baptized of the Holy Ghost" and each of their de- 
posers had more confidence in their purity and faithfulness 



THE FINAL ISSUE. 97 

• 

to Christ, than in his own. Unless Christ had authorized 
his judicatories to depose from the ministry his servants, who 
are acknowledged to be most dear to his heart, and whom He 
is most signally favoring with the " unction of the Spirit," the 
act under consideration is a most unauthorized usurpation. 

5. In their defence, both before the Synod and Presbytery, 
these brethren were denied an appeal to the Word of God, 
a to the law and to the testimony," in other words, to the 
Head of the Church Himself. The standards of the Church, 
man-made standards, were placed between the accused and 
" God the Judge of all," and they were denied all access or ap- 
peal to Him. " In the temple of God," the Confession of 
Faith was " seated as God," yes " above all that is called God, 
or that is worshipped." In that trial, the Bible and conse- 
quently the God of the Bible, were denied a hearing. The 
Confession of Faith only was permitted to speak. Shall we, 
shall the Church, acknowledge such acts as the voice of God ? 
Never. When she does it, the Church has unchurched her- 
self, and allied herself to the " man of sin." The " man of sin" 
has never set up higher claims than these. " The fact is, our 
standard is, unless the Presbyterian Church alter their views 
of truth, as really, in their opinion, the Word of God as the 
Bible is." 

6. To place this whole transaction before the public in a 
proper light, one fact, disclosed in an account given in a for- 
mer number, of the meeting of Synod, at whose command 
the act of deposition was passed, needs to be repeated here. 
This fact shows that these brethren were not only denied an 
appeal to the Bible, but also all proper appeal to the Confes- 
sion of Faith. The fact is this : In their defence, these 
brethren offered to show, from the usage of the Church, that 
the offence charged against them should not be regarded as 
an offence demanding deposition, or censure, inasmuch as 
the great mass of the Church had departed from that instru- 
ment in particulars equally important. All such appeal was 
promptly denied them. They were told at once that Synod 
would not hear the truth of the Confession, nor the fact of 
their own adherence to it called in question. We may safely 
challenge the Church and the world to produce an instance 
of unauthorized usurpation, if the above, taken in all its 
varied aspects, is not. 

Here we might close our remarks, enough having already 
been said to show that the act of deposition under considera- 
tion is without authority from Christ, and consequently null 



98 THE FINAL ISSUE. 

and void. As principles of such fundamental importance are 
involved in the present case, however — principles which vi- 
tally concern the dearest interests and most sacred responsi- 
bilities of the Church, we now proceed to state the ground of 
the action of the Association. We wish it to be distinctly 
understood, that we regard ecclesiastical judicatories as hav- 
ing authority to exercise discipline within the limits pre- 
scribed by the head of the Church, and to depose from the 
ministry for reasons which he has revealed as ground of de- 
position. Had Br. B. been deposed for such reasons, it would 
have been the consummation of wickedness in the Associa- 
tion not to have sanctioned the act of Presbytery by refusing 
to receive and acknowledge him as a Minister of Christ. 
Having been subject to an act of deposition for no such rea- 
sons, but for reasons which Christ has prohibited as such 
ground, we should have been equally guilty had we recogniz- 
ed as authoritative, an act of such flagrant usurpation in the 
house of God. In the fear of God we proclaim it before the 
world, we charge it upon the consciences of the North River 
Presbytery, that in that act of deposition they usurped author- 
ity which Christ never conferred upon them, or any judica- 
tory on earth. They had no more authority to depose these 
brethren, than they had to deprive them of life. They had 
no power against them, only as it had been given them from 
above. Power to depose them for such reasons had never 
been given them by the Head of the Church. This we affirm 
for the following reasons. 

I. The act of deposition under consideration was in oppo- 
sition to the express teachings of inspiration. 

The act was passed, it should be borne in mind, for no mo- 
ral delinquency expressed, implied, or imputed. Every reader 
of the Bible well knows that the sacred volume authorizes 
discipline for none but moral delinquencies, and for error 
when the holding of it implies such delinquency. 

This act was passed under the charge of heresy. Now the 
Bible has expressly revealed the ground, and the only ground 
of deposition under such a charge. "A man that is a heretic, 
after the first and second admonition, reject ; knowing that 
he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of 
himself." The deposers themselves acknowledge that these 
brethren had embraced no such form of heresy as this. They 
had embraced no errors which implied either subversion or 
sin. In the whole matter they are acknowledged to have 
preserved " consciences void of offence," — to have attained and 



THE FINAL ISSUE. 99 

maintained a degree of spirituality and devotion to the duties 
of their sacred calling superior to all their brethren. The act 
of Presbytery, therefore, was in direct opposition to the re- 
vealed will of Christ, in respect to the ground of deposition 
for heresy. 

This act was also in opposition to the example of an in- 
spired apostle under similar circumstances. The gift of the 
Holy Ghost which the deposers themselves acknowledged 
these brethren had received, while holding the errors imputed 
to them, was admitted by an inspired apostle as an all-suffi- 
cient, all-authoritative reason why individuals, contrary to 
" the standard," and to universal usage, should be received to 
a standing in the Church. Should not the same gift then, in 
connection with the exercise of the functions of the ministry, 
be an all-authoritative reason why an individual should not 
be deposed from the sacred office ? Ought not the Presbytery, 
as these brethren stood before them, to have said, "Forasmuch 
as God hath given to these men the like gift as He has given 
unto us (letting the Holy Spirit fall upon them, as upon us 
at the beginning), what are we that we should withstand 
God ?" What are we that we should lay our hands upon the 
" Lord's anointed V For ourselves, we w T ould almost as soon 
vote for the deposition of the Son of God, after the visible de- 
scent of the Holy Ghost upon Him, as vote for that of an 
individual upon whom we acknowledge He has poured out 
the like gift. And shall we, shall the Church, acknowledge 
as authoritative, acts of deposition passed upon such men ? 
We divorce ourselves from the Word and authority of God 
when we do it. 

2. This act was also in opposition equally direct and open, to 
the spirit and fundamental principles of the Confession of Faith, 
upon the professed authority of which the deposition was 
based. Special attention is invited to the following funda- 
mental principles pertaining to discipline as laid down in 
that instrument. 

" Discipline is the exercise of that authority, and the appli- 
cation of that system of laws which the Lord Jesus Christ 
hath appointed in his church. 

An offence is anything in the principles or practice of a 
church member which is contrary to the word of God ; or 
which, if it be not in its own nature sinful, may tempt others 
to sin, or mar their spiritual edification. 

Nothing, therefore, ought to be considered by any judica- 
tory as an offence, or admitted as matter of accusation, which 



100 THE FINAL ISSUE. 

cannot be proved such from Scripture, or from the regula- 
tions and practice of the church, founded on Scripture ; and 
which does not involve those evils which discipline is in- 
tended to prevent." 

Here the reader will notice that the great principle which 
we have announced as the basis of the action of the Association 
is distinctly affirmed. " Discipline is the application of that 
system of laws which Christ has appointed in his Church." 
Every judicatory of the Presbyterian Church is prohibited, by 
the Confession of Faith, from disciplining any individual for 
anything which the revealed laws of Christ do not designate 
as a subject of discipline. " Nothing, therefore, ought to be 
considered by any judicatory as an offence, or admitted as mat- 
ter of accusation, which cannot be proved to be such from 
Scripture," &c. We venture to affiim that there is not a 
member of this Presbytery who would maintain, that if the 
appeal was made to the Bible, the shadow of authority could 
be found there for the act of deposition under consideration. 
That act, therefore, was in direct opposition to the entire spirit 
and fundamental principles of the Confession of Faith. 

Let us now look at the article in respect to heresy. 

" Heresy and schism may be of such a nature as to infer 
deposition ; but errors ought to be carefully considered : 
whether they strike at the vitals of religion, and are indus- 
triously spread, or whether they arise from the weakness of 
the human understanding, and are not likely to do much 
injury." 

In the next paragraph it is added, " For some more danger- 
ous errors, however, suspension may become necessary.'' 
Here the reader will notice — 

1. That is only in extreme cases, for " some more danger- 
ous errors," such as " strike at the vitals of religion," that 
suspension is in any case permitted by the Confession of 
Faith. 

2. Errors which do not " strike at the vitals of religion," 
but " arise from the weakness of the human understanding." 
are prohibited as ground of deposition. 

Now what greater evidence can we have, that an error, if 
it be an error, does not " strike at the vitals of religion," and 
that it does " arise from the weakness of the human under- 
standing," than this, that in embracing it, "a conscience void 
of offence" has been preserved, the baptism of the Holy Ghost 
received, and a great* advance in spirituality made — an ad- 
vance far beyond those around who hold the opposite senti- 



THE FINAL ISSUE. 101 

merit ? All this, and more, was acknowledged to be true of 
these brethren, by their deposers themselves. Their act, 
therefore, was in as direct opposition to the spirit and funda- 
mental principles of their own standard, as to those of the 
Bible, which they refused to acknowledge as a standard at 
all in the case. 

3. In this act of deposition, the Presbytery stand before the 
Church and the world, self-condemned. In all their contro- 
versies with Papists, Puseyites, and High Churchmen, these 
brethren, together with the entire Presbyterian Church, and 
evangelical Christians of every name, have reprobated an ap- 
peal to church standards, to human authority of any kind, to 
any tribunal but the Word of God. In this act, with equal 
positiveness, they denied and reprobated all appeal to the Bi- 
ble, to any standard but that of the Church. The case stands 
thus. In their controversies with Romanists, Puseyites, and 
High Church exclusives, they have nothing to stand upon 
but the Bible. Here, therefore, they reprobate an appeal to 
creeds, confessions of faith, decrees of councils, human tra- 
ditions, to anything but " the law and the testimony." In their 
controversy with the advocates of the doctrine of Entire 
Sanctincation, they have nothing to stand upon but the Con- 
fession of Faith. Here, therefore, they reprobate an appeal 
to the Word of God — to anything but the Confession of Faith. 
Now, which shall we regard as authoritative, — their condem- 
nation of Papists, or of these brethren ? If the former, then 
in the latter case the deposers themselves stand self-condemn- 
ed, and the deposed are re-instated in their standing as Min- 
isters of Christ. 

4. In the act under consideration, the Presbytery have re- 
nounced the fundamental principle of Protestantism, and 
have avowed a principle which even Papists never dared to 
avow. In their controversies with Papists, the reformers ac- 
knowledged they had departed from the doctrines of the 
church. They appealed from such standards to the Word of 
God. Their opponents never dared to deny their right to 
make the appeal. In a case precisely similar — a case in 
which a departure from the standards of the Church is con- 
fessed, and such departure is attempted to be justified by an 
appeal to the Word of God, the Presbyterian Church steps in, 
and denies the right to make such an appeal. To deny the 
right of appeal from the standards of the Church to the Word 
of God, is to deny the right to appeal from such standards to 
the Head of the Church himself. It isr to deny, even to the 

10 



102 THE FINAL ISSUE. 

Most High, a hearing in his own judicatories. If the Church 
sustains her judicatories in such a stand as this, we hesitate 
not to affirm our solemn conviction, that the time is not dis- 
tant, when Papacy will be reinstated in all her borders, in all 
but in name — Papacy in a more exclusive and arbitrary form 
than she has ever put on. One of the chief reasons which 
induced us to prepare this communication, is, to lift the 
warning voice against the tendencies to arbitrary power 
almost everywhere visible around us in the judicatories of 
the Church. We believe that the case before us was permit- 
ted, in the providence of God, to reveal with distinctness to 
the public eye these fearful tendencies. 

5. The monstrous absurdity, not to say wickedness, of the 
act under consideration, will appear glaringly evident, when 
contrasted with the testimony of the members of Presbytery, 
to the characters of the deposed. Think of the phrases and 
sentences, "precious brethren," "devoted, and self-denying 
men," " baptized of the Holy Ghost," " far more spiritual, than 
when they entered the ministry," " we all have great confi- 
dence in your piety," " if Christ should ask us, ' Which of you 
shall betray me,' there is not a man of Presbytery who would 
not apply it to himself, sooner than to either of them," &c. 
Think, we say, of such testimony, and then contrast it with 
the resolution. 

" Therefore, Resolved, That brethren Belden and Hill be, 
and they are hereby deposed from the Gospel Ministry." 

We trust that the brethren who perpetrated this dreadful 
deed, will " obtain mercy because they did it ignorantly^ in 
unbelief." We think, however, that the day is not distant, 
when the brother especially who penned that resolution, the 
intimate associate and familiar correspondent of the beloved 
J. B. Taylor, into whose spirit and sentiments the deposed 
so fully drank, will call to mind the part which he took in 
that transaction, with feelings not unlike those of one of old, 
when he said, " And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen 
was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his 
death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him." When 
alone with his God and Saviour, he will, we trust, give utter- 
ance to sentiments like these, " Thou knowest, Lord, that 
when ' those precious brethren,' { those devoted, and self- 
denying ministers,' those unoffending men of whom I myself 
bore testimony that ' they had received the Holy Ghost,' and 
that I myself was far more likely to betray thee than either 
of them, when the act of deposition was passed upon these 



Committee 

of 
Association. 



BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES. 103 

men of God, I, Lord, was the man that conceived and wrote 
the murderous resolution. At that time, Lord, ' this hand 
offended, this wicked hand offended.' " 

The reasons of this Association for receiving Br. Belden * 
to their fellowship as a Minister of Jesus Christ, are now be- 
fore the public. To our own consciences we stand fully jus- 
tified in respect to the action we took in the case. To the 
Church and the public we would say, " We are made mani- 
fest unto God ; and we trust also are made manifest in your 
consciences." 

In behalf of the Association, 

A. Mahan, 

C. G. Finney, 

H. Cowles, 

J. Morgan, 

Such is the attitude of no inconsiderable portion of the 
religious public in the United States, in reference to the doc- 
trine of holy living. Such movements produce results. 
Their wake does not, like the wake of a ship, very soon 
leave a level and smooth surface behind. They put forth a 
strong influence upon the conscience of the Church, and 
deeply and permanently affect our common Christianity. 

The doctrine of entire sanctification has been, in the Ober- 
lin Evangelist, represented as existing in three forms, viz. : 

1 . As a state or act of the will, occupying no appreciable 
time, but in which, for the moment, the whole being is sur- 
rendered to God. 

2. As a more permanent state of mind, lasting some ap- 
preciable time, whether an hour, a day, or a week, a year 3 
or the residue of life. 

3. As the state following the baptism of the Spirit, by 
which the soul is gloriously illuminated, and the whole 
being exalted to a higher, though not more sinless spiritual 
life, than is possible or obligatory without that baptism. 

SEC. IV. — -BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES. 

We have made great advances in various benevolent 
operations : the annual array of the Missionary enterprise in 
its various departments has become splendidly imposing, and 
our Religious Anniversaries are great festivals of gladness 
and joy. 



104 THE QUESTION ANSWERED. 

For several of the more recent years, the speakers at the 
Anniversaries have said, with power and pathos, that the 
thing now most needed among the Churches, and especially 
in the Ministry, is, a stronger, livelier, and a more perma- 
nent, and a vastly higher tone of PIE TY. 

At the late meeting of the American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions (Sept., 1844), reported to have 
heen a meeting altogether extraordinary of its kind, the pith 
and point of their best speeches consisted in the subdued and 
feeling statement that the piety of the Ministry and the 
Churches was low ; that increased gifts and money, and ad- 
vance in the work, could not be expected, unless there was 
more piety — a great and a permanent elevation of holy liv^ 
ing. 

A favorite, and a sort of standing figure in the speeches, 
and surely a good one, was that water will never rise higher 
than its fountain. 

All this should tell powerfully, extensively, and sweetly 
in a reformation in the Churches, especially in the JMinistry. 

But shall it all evaporate in rhetoric, and die away in the 
retreating echo of the public meeting ? How shall the vision 
be realized ? By what means shall the piety of the Churcb.es 
be elevated, and increased, and permanently held at the point 
gained, and rising still higher ? 

These Anniversary speeches and appeals, re-moulded and 
freshly gilded, and all good in their place, and poured upon 
the immense congregation, and scattered, through the papers, 
over the whole land, — and all this for years, — have effected 
little or no apparent change for the better in the spiritual state 
of those who have delivered them, or in the Churches. 

SEC. V. THE QUESTION ANSWERED. 

What is the cause ? is the question which should be cor- 
rectly answered, and which may be thus answered, and the 
answer to which is crowded more and more intensely upon 
the public conscience by the rapid developments of Divine 
Providence. 

During the last few years, the doctrine of holy living has 
been put forth under some, new aspects, and with interest and 
earnestness and intelligent discussion. Great pains have 



THE QUESTION ANSWERED. 105 

♦ 
been taken to give the simple Scriptural view of the subject, 
so that the hungering and thirsting might find their -wants 
supplied, and that all might see that it is essentially removed 
from Antinomianism. 

Christians widely apart, and connected with different de- 
nominations, have been deeply exercised in prayer on the 
subject, have studied the promises with unwonted interest., 
and have been greatly strengthened in their faith, quickened 
and comforted in the spiritual life. 

But how have these views been met, and the men who 
have communicated them to the public been treated ? The 
preceding pages show. As if by general consent, ecclesias- 
tical bodies have pounced upon them as victims for sacrifice. 
This effort to increase the spirituality of Christians, to revive 
the piety of the Church, to impart a living reality, vigor, 
energy and permanency to holy living, and hailed with joy, 
has been condemned, ridiculed, and scornfully rejected by 
leading religious influences in the country. The very men 
who have made speeches at public meetings, are among the 
most active to scout the doctrine as heresy, and to cast out 
as evil the names of their Christian brethren. 

If perfect holiness in the present life be not an object which 
we may expect to gain, how will you graduate the scale, and 
where will you fix the point of attainment ? — and wherein 
lies the power of your motive to urge the duty. If follow- 
ing after perfect holiness, with the expectation of attaining it, 
is the wrong way, is following after imperfect holiness the 
right way ? If you cannot attain to perfect sanctification here, 
are you in fault for coming short ! And if the Church is not 
in fault for coming fully and entirely up to the Divine re- 
quirement, is she in fault for remaining at the point of her 
present attainment ; or even if she should sink still lower on 
the scale ? And what is the use, and even propriety, of these 
eloquent and so often repeated anniversary appeals ? 

A holier ministry and a purer Church are indeed needed to 
carry higher and onward the world's conversion. 

This work can be achieved only by the arm of God. His 

power comes in to its aid, just so fast and as far as the 

church, which is the medium of the Divine operation, takes 

her nroper place ; which is in sympathy with Christ in 

10* 



106 LIGHT OF THE CHURCH. 

labor to put away all sin from the earth. And her piety 
will grow only as she honestly follows the convictions of 
truth. 

In giving the reasons, however, why the piety of the 
Church does not rise higher, it does not become Christians to 
deal in recrimination. There is a cause : it involves guilt, 
and guilt which does not adhere exclusively to any one man 
or set of men. But it does become them to admit the 
testimony of facts, that the seat of the difficulty may be 
known, and to admonish the convicted, as also to weep over 
their guilt. 

SEC. VI.— THE PRESENT LIGHT OF THE CHURCH EXCEEDS 

THE PAST. 

The progress of the Church in theological knowledge and 
in Christian experience and enterprise, and the condition of 
the unconverted world, absolutely beckoning to the followers 
of Christ to come out and possess the land, impart an ineffa- 
ble interest to the question, Why does not the piety of the 
Church rise, and her faith wax stronger and stronger ? While 
great things have been achieved for the good of the world by 
the Church, and Christianity is the glory of all lands in which 
she has gained a footing, and her achievements in the pre- 
sent century are truly splendid ; it is also a fact, that the 
progress of her efforts is impeded and tardy, considering 
present facilities for aggressive movements and conquests — 
and men of shrewdness will and should inquire, why are not 
Christians accomplishing more — more — for God — for our 
country — for the world ? And Christians themselves are 
bound to press the same question, and honestly and penitent- 
ly look at the true answer, so often and so properly given at 
our public religious anniversaries ; which is — the faith of 
Christians is weak — their piety is low and languid ; a fact 
reiterated in peals increasingly solemn and loud, and urging 
the elementary and primary inquiry, Why is the piety of the 
Church thus low ? 

The piety of the Church cannot grow, unless she honestly 
follows the convictions of truth — unless she advance under 
increasing light. 



DUTY KNOWN. 107 

We walk in a brighter light than that which shone on the 
path of the Fathers. And living and active minds, men of 
loftier intellectual attainments and purer practice than theirs, 
should be walking in our streets and teaching in our pulpits. 
The tall ones of the present age who are not men of pro- 
gress, are a race altogether different and inferior to the Pro- 
testant Reformers, — destitute of their spirit, maxims, manli- 
ness, intrepidity, and moral courage. They do not sympa- 
thize with the aims, or the aspirations, or the endeavors of 
Luther ; nor do the work, nor breathe the spirit of his age. 

Says Coleridge, " It is a profound question to answer, 
why it is that, since the middle of the 16th century, the 
Reformation from Popery has not advanced one step in 
Europe ?" This question is solved by the single fact that 
Luther contended for the truth, and fearlessly acted up to#is 
convictions ; but his followers have fought for Luthemm : 
he for principle, they for the sect formed upon it, in a per- 
petual course of expediency and compromise. 

SEC. VII. — DUTY KNOWN. 

In respect to holy living and the works of benevolence, it 
is the duty of the Church to occupy the position which 
Christ did, in a perfect imitation, in their sphere, of his ex- 
ample. 

Christ was a Reformer : so is the Christian who is worthy 
the name. Of course every true Christian Church is a re- 
formatory body. Look at basis principles. 

1. In respect to the individual Christian. If I regard 
iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. This is 
both a directory and a test of character. 

2. The Church. 

Each member has equal rights with his fellow members 
to protection, to instruction, to the ordinances, to watch, care 
and fellowship, and to entire freedom and security from 
spiritual despotism. Proclaim liberty throughout all the 
land, to all the inhabitants thereof. 

3. Ministers. 

The priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should 
seek the LAW at his mouth ; for he is the messenger of the 



108 



DUTY NEGLECTED. 



Lord of Hosts. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like 
a trumpet. Show my people their transgressions, and the 
house of Jacob their sins. 

Thus clearly defined is the duty of each Christian, of the 
Church as a body, and of those who are Ministers in the 
Churches. 

So far as these instructions are regarded and followed, 
does the Church stand approved in the sight of God ; and 
disapproved to the extent in which they are not followed, 
both in the spirit and in the letter. 

Obedience is the only reliable proof of individual or of 
associated piety. And while it is the only certain proof that 
you possess piety, it is also the only course possible by 
w^ich your piety can be increased. 

SEC. VIII. — DUTY NEGLECTED. 

Are the Churches in the land obedient to the command of 
God ? Are they doing the work assigned to them by the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and faithfully executing his will ? 
Whilst they avow and publish correct principles and doc- 
trines, do they accompany this avowal by a correct Scriptural 
course of action ? 

In the pulpit, in their religious meetings, and in their 
prayers, — in their Conferences, Associations, Presbyteries, 
Synods, Assemblies, Boards of Trust, and Anniversaries, — 
the character of the Churches in the United States is spread 
out, in the detail and in the aggregate, as upon a broad sheet 
hung midheaven. 

Are they practically in deep and living, abiding, active, 
energetic sympathy with Christ ? 

1. In opposition to all open known iniquity. 

2. In faithfully rebuking sin and the sinner among all 
classes in the community. 

3. In giving counsel and instruction to the people respect- 
ing all their duties in the relations they sustain — domestic, 
public, civil, religious, and political, — handling the word of 
God without deception, and giving to each his portion in due 
season. 

4. In sustaining all needed reforms. 



DUTY NEGLECTED. 109 

5. In discarding all compromise with sin, on the principle 
which shone so brilliantly in his own perfect example, viz. : 
Ye cannot serve two masters : he that is not for me is against 
me — he that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad. 

6. In preaching the Gospel to the poor, in relieving the 
oppressed, in defending inalienable rights, and in doing 
justly. 

7. In choosing righteous men for rulers, who will give to 
the country a righteous legislation, and withholding support 
from men known to be extortioners and oppressors. 

8. In the diffusion of knowledge, correct principles, and 
the redeeming, converting, holy influence of the Gospel of 
Salvation. 

All these are but the epitome of Christian practice — a 
schedule of the great and blessed work which it is the duty 
and the privilege of the Church to accomplish, the doing of 
which is the proof that she is the true Church of Christ. 

By this test, how stand the Churches with their Ministers, 
Theologians, Seminaries, and Teachers ? 

Men of genuine piety, real Christians, when informed, 
sympathize with Christ on all the points above named, and 
efficiently co-operate with him. 

Christians in this land, and especially in this age, have 
the key and the means of knowledge — the Bible ; and its 
fundamental principles and precepts are exhibited. 

What, the question returns, is their practice ? 

In the midst of these churches there are about three mil- 
lions of slaves — thousands of the members are slaveholders, 
and traffic in the souls and bodies of men — rear them for the 
market — and not less than 200,000 of the communicants are 
themselves slaves. 

The system of American slavery involves the breach of 
every command in the decalogue — covers as deep cruelties 
and enormities as can be practised among men, marked with 
unmitigated horrors, and is without a redeeming quality. 

But for the aid this system receives from professed Chris- 
tians, who are slaveholders, by the positive defence of it, 
and by the neglect to reprove it, in their individual capacity, 
and as churches, and in other associate actions, it could not 
stand. Had the noble testimony against it, by Hopkins and 



110 DUTY NEGLECTED. 

Edwards been faithfully followed up by Ministers, slavery in 
the United States would have died by a quick consumption. 

Are these indications of piety ? and can the piety of Chris- 
tians flourish while sustaining or countenancing such enor- 
mities ? 

At this age, when the subject of human rights has been so 
fully examined and so faithfully presented, such participation 
in crime cannot hide under the cover of ignorance. If John 
Newton could make this plea in excuse a century ago, the 
Newtons of the present period cannot do it. 

Will brethren look at these things before they make their 
next anniversary speeches ? 

Added to this, Christians in our land very extensively 
violate, at the ballot-box, the express command of God, in 
respect to the choice of legislators and magistrates. He that 
ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. 
" Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates 
throughout thy tribes, and they shall judge the people with 
just judgment." God states the province of a ruler to be, to 
execute judgment in the morning, and deliver the spoiled out 
of the hand of the oppressor. Rulers are a terror to good 
works, and not to the evil. In the face of all this, a large 
majority of professed Christians, who vote at all, cast a vote 
for a slaveholder to be the chief magistrate in this nation. 
Christians, by their vote, sustain duelling, which, being the 
intent to kill, is nothing less than murder. 

On these subjects the mass of our accomplished and learn- 
ed men, bearing the Christian name, take the position of pru- 
dent conservatives. Living in the midst of the most mon- 
strous abuses that ever demanded reform among any people 
at any period, wielding their cultivated powers and holding 
their high station, at a time when the exigencies of the race 
and the interests of Divine truth demand of them a holier 
spirit and 3 a purer work than that of the Protestant Re- 
formers, in an age in which greater facilities, both for in- 
quiry and for labor, are provided to their hands — they form 
the self-complacent conclusion, that their strength is to sit 
still, to make no direct attack upon certain sins sustained by 
legislation, and to refrain from collision with fashionable 
crimes ; which is, in effect, to do nojhing efficiently towards 
the permanent purification of public sentiment. 



INFERENCES OF NON-PROFESSORS. Ill 

The practice of the Churches in this country, and the po- 
sition of the Brethren,, of controlling influence, in reference 
to known sins — national sins— especially the sin of traffick- 
ing in the bodies and the souls of men, and all this under 
the light which culminates in the middle of the nineteenth 
century; and in a Republic; and, moreover, in the midst of 
unparalleled opportunities for improvement in morals and a 
pure religion, is absolutely and utterly astounding — an ano- 
maly which exceeds in the marvellous. 

The bearing of this testimony, of necessity, is pointed, 
certain, and tremendous against *the Christianity of these 
churches. 

SEC. IX. — INFERENCES OF NON-PROFESSORS. 

Who can wonder that men, shrewd and thinking, should 
lose confidence in these Churches, and even in the Christi- 
anity they profess ? — that, as Christians thus uphold oppres- 
sion, and habitually practise known, open abominations, 
they can no longer be|reiied upon to defend inalienable rights, 
and to promote human liberty; that Christianity, if it be 
what they practise, does not meet the exigencies of man ; 
and therefore resort must be had to other expedients. Hence 
Fourierism and similar aberrations. 

When men, not connected with the Churches, but admiring 
the fundamental principles of Christianity, warmly espouse 
them, and urge their application to the actions of men in civil 
and political, as well as in private life, and strongly advo- 
cate their sufficiency at all these points, and call on the 
community to act in accordance with them, presuming, of 
course, that Christians will unite in carrying out their own 
avowed principles, find, that they are not sustained, in this 
advocacy, by the Churches, they will, of course, turn away 
from them with disgust, and declare such Christians to be 
recreant to their vows. 

In respect to slavery, duelling, and a righteous legislation, 
the practice of the vast majority of professed Christians in this 
land, is in direct and -positive violation of the fundamental 
principles and the spirit of the Christianity they profess. 

A fact like this speaks plainly and loudly in answer to the 
question, Why is not the piety of the Churches higher, and 
why is it not on the increase ? 



CHAPTER VI. 

PROVINCE OF THE CHURCH AND THE 
PULPIT IN REFERENCE TO THE STATE. 

SEC. I. — NOTICE OF THREE FALSE POSITIONS. 

In a discourse recently published it is alleged, that 

1. « The Christian minister has no authority to meddle 
with politics in the Pulpit." 

Then he may not read in his pulpit those portions of the 
Bible which treat of politics. But, as matter of fact the Bible 
is much occupied with politics — with political history — 
political maxims — political institutions — directions for regu- 
lating popular elections — for enacting, executing and 
repealing laws : directions for the ruler — directions for the 
ruled ; political promises, political threatenings, political 
predictions. Yet, says the sermon, a Christian minister 
has no authority to meddle with politics in the pulpit. How 
then can he explain the great Law of Love, the second tab]e 
of the Decalogue, which contains the doctrine of inalienable 
rights ? It is the sole business of human governments to 
guard these rights ; and they have no authority, in their 
legislation, to go a step farther than is necessary to secure this 
guardianship. If the Minister may not preach politics in the 
pulpit, he must there omit all instruction addressed to the 
people on the relations between the citizens and the govern- 
ment under which they live. Neither may he mention them 
in his pulpit prayers. 

Bible religion cannot be taught from the pulpit, without 
inculcating lessons upon the civil and political relations 
men sustain, and, their duties to the government. The 
natural rights and duties of all men are not more clearly the 
foundation of a republican government, than they are of the 
Christiah religion. The two cannot be separated. Even the 



NOTICE OF THEIR FALSE POSITIONS. 113 

solemn practical test given by the Saviour in the 25th of 
Matthew, if properly exhibited in the pulpit, would cut 
deep and broad into the sphere of politics. 

2. " The Sabbath day is not the day for men acting in any 
capacity, to discuss political subjects/ 5 is another inference 
in the discourse. , 

But the Lord Jesus Christ declares, " The Sabbath wag 
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath : it is lawful to do 
good on the Sabbath — how much better is man than a sheep V 
Now with us, not our cattle have fallen into the pit, and 
will perish if not taken out on the Sabbath, but millions of 
our fellow-citizens, thousands of our own Christian brethren 
have fallen among thieves, and are writhing in the pit of 
slavery, hemmed around with woes, and all their rights 
crushed. These fellow-beings, created free, have been thus 
robbed and cast into the pit by unrighteous legislation. This 
unrighteous legislation will continue, and the pit continue to 
be filled with successive generations of our suffering brethren, 
unless the public mind becomes enlightened on the subject, and 
rulers elected who will give to the country a righteous legis- 
lation. To speak of the wo of these outcasts, the duty of 
relieving them, and the means by which relief can be ob- 
tained, w T ould of course lead to treat of political acts and 
relations. But no, says the preacher, not on the Sabbath, 
What ! profane the Sabbath to preach of righteousness and 
of judgment? Profane the Sabbath and pervert the pulpit, 
to expostulate with men who enact wicked laws and thus 
oppress the poor. 

You see a man on the Sabbath gathering his wheat har- 
vest. You reprove him for a violation of the Divine law. 

The next day you pass the plantation of the slaveholder, 
covered with laborers driven under the lash, like cattle — and 
like them sold and bought. You hail him as an old ac- 
quaintance, but say nothing of his crime. 

The next Lord's day, you go into your pulpit with a pow- 
erful discourse on the sin of Sabbath desecration. 

A friend who saw you at the plantation inquires why do 
you not come out in a Sabbath discourse against the sin of 
slaveholding, and the wicked enactments by which it is cre- 
ated and sustained ? Ah, you reply, that would b preach- 
11 



114 NOTICE OF THEIR FALSE POSITIONS. 

ing politics, and politics may not be discussed on the Sab- 
bath. No wonder that the loathsome hypocrisy of such a 
plea should sicken the public mind. Reprove for gathering 
wheat on the Sabbath — but not a word against stealing men 
and robbing and oppressing them. 

3. inference third from the sermon* " The Christian 
church has no authority, either in her primary assemblies, 
or in her ecclesiastical judicatories, to array herself against 
the constitution or laws of any State or Nation." 

Pray what is the correct rule of conduct for men ? The 
Law of God, founded on immutable natural justice— the 
only legitimate guide for men in ail their relations, individual, 
social, public, religious, civil, political. 

The rightful power of all legislation is to declare and en- 
force only our natural rights and duties, and take none of 
them from us. No man has a natural right to commit ag- 
gression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from 
which the law ought to restrain him. 

The enactments which create slavery, for they are not 
law, are a violation of natural rights and duties. 

Chattel slavery cannot exist but through violence. God 
never made a slave. His arrangements have rendered it im- 
possible that man should be born a slave. And all enact- 
ments which create chattel slavery are contrary to the Law 
of God, and of course no Law. Here is a fixed fact ; and 
here it will stand and look out upon you in smiles or in 
frowns as you sustain or trample upon justice. Any and 
every Constitution which sustains slavery is in opposition to 
God and his Law. And shall I obey God or man ? To 
please man, shall I, who am a Christian, do an act that God 
has forbidden ? If I approve of a constitution which is con- 
trary to the Law of God, if I sustain an unrighteous law of 
any kind, 1 positively do that which God has forbidden. 
And, on the principles of natural justice, and in accordance 
with the divine Law, I am bound to resist every unrighteous 
constitution and every wicked law. ^ 

But is a Christian Church bound to do this ? She has no 
authority to do this, says the Preacher. That is, a Christian 
in the capacity of a Church member may not do that which 
it is a sin to omit to do in every other capacity. Still worse, 



NOTICE OF THEIR FALSE POSITIONS. 115 

Christians in their associate capacity, may not testify against 
wicked laws, and unrighteous civil compacts. Of course 
they may not send the gospel to the heathen, for the mis- 
sionary is the agent of the Church: — as a Church they may 
not resolve to sustain the law of God, for this would be 
an array against all that is opposed to these laws ; — nor re- 
solve to bear witness against theft, adultery, murder or any 
other crime among men, or the desecration of the Sabbath, 
for this would bring them into certain conflict" with hu- 
man laws : — nor in prayer plead with God for the conver- 
sion of men and the reign of righteousness on earth, for 
this would overturn both constitutions and laws of human 
devising : — nor mention in preaching national sins, for it -is 
only in her constitution and laws enacted and executed that 
a Nation sins. The position would silence the voice of 
the Church against vice and in favor of virtue, against sin 
and in favor of holiness ; and make her, as such, in her 
Church capacity, not only a cypher, but an abstraction. In 
charity to the preacher it seems necessary to assume that 
his language does not convey correctly the thought in his 
mind. In every view the position is false and anti-chris- 
tian. 

If the inference is just, only let wickedness of any kind be 
incorporated into a constitution, or sanctioned by law, and 
the Church has no right to array herself against it : a quiet 
way truly to give up this world to the Devil ! 

How different the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, him- 
self the great subverter, commissioning his Church to com- 
plete the work of Reform he commenced ; and of course to 
subvert all constitutions and laws opposed to God. There 
are no interests in human society which the influence of 
Christians, acting as a Church, is not designed to reach. 

The Christian religion is designed to spread over all the 
interests of human society, and to affect deeply but most hap- 
pily, all that affects man. To enable Christians to act the 
most successfully for the diffusion of this influence, they 
are organized into a Church, with its divinely appointed or- 
dinances ; and their best and most glorious movements are 
made as a Church. The voice of an individual may be pow- 
erful. But the voice of many combined is more powerful. 



116 NOTICE OF THEIR FALSE POSITIONS. 

Individual action, in nameless ramifications, makes up the 
component parts of public sentiment. But it is when 
these individuals, acting and acted upon, meet in one body, 
compare views, and unite in results, and proclaim this union 
as the voice of the assembly, or the Convention, that the 
public become apprised of the heart-stirring fact, that a mighty 
change is in progress*, that a revolution has been achieved ; 
and this united testimony, this voice of the embodied multi- 
tude, strikes deeply upon the public ear and the public con- 
science, with agitation, agitation, agitation, till all that is 
wrong in state constitutions and laws is removed. 

The climax of individual action is not attained, till the 
embodied influence of each is proclaimed in the voice of the 
Church in her ecclesiastical capacity and judicatories. This is 
common sense — universal experience — Bible tactics — Chris- 
tian politics — practical benevolence — moral machinery — 
needful adaptation — the diplomacy of all agencies good and 
bad — identical with and inseparable from all social liabilities. 

Not indeed that the Church, in any capacity whatever, is to 
legislate, either for the State or for the Nation : nor dictate to 
civil or political bodies any governmental measures. Never. 
But in all the capacities in which the Church can speak, or 
put forth influence, is she bound to lift up her voice, as a 
known organized body, in favor of justice, and in opposition, 
stern and inflexible, to injustice : in approbation of righteous 
legislation, and in condemnation of all unrighteous legisla- 
tion : in testimony strong and unremitted against all consti- 
tutions, State and National, which do not sustain inalienable 
rights, and which of course are contrary to natural justice, 
and the Law of God. 

In such action her movement is moral and reJigious, wholly 
within her legitimate sphere: simply testimony ; the expres- 
sion of opinions ; the embodiment of moral sense ; the voice 
of conscience : no threats, pains or penalties being annexed. 

True, it is designed to bear upon the civil and political 
action of the community. Not in the tone of menace, nor 
dictation, nor even prescription. But simply and only to 
hold up before the public the fundamental principles of just- 
ice — and where civil and political enactments contravene 
these principles, to call the public attention to the fact, and 



ATTITUDE OF RELIGIOUS BODIES. 117 

to inscribe upon the portals of all public influences and action 
the Bible axiom, Righteousness exalteth a Nation — but 
SIN is a reproach to any people. If the Church, as such, 
in her primary assemblies, and in her judicatories, may not 
do this, the organization has no sort of adaptation to the hu- 
man mind, or to human action. 

SEC. 2. THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGIOUS BODIES TOWARDS 

SLAVERY. 

This point demands the prayerful attention of Christians, 
on account of the position taken by religious organizations 
of the country in reference to Slavery, and to lead us to more 
just and correct views of the piety of the American Churches, 
and the causes of its decline, and the means by which it may 
be increased. 

The character of the Religion of this country is made 
public by the acts of our religious organizations with more 
certainty than through any other channel. They are sus- 
tained by Christians in their individual capacity, and the posi- 
tions they take are justly regarded as indicating the senti- 
ment, and moral sense of the masses from which they derive 
their support. These organizations represent the great body 
of professed Christians in the Nation. So far, therefore, as 
they are connected with Slavery, they publish to the world 
the religious sense of the Christians in the Nation on this 
subject. 

The Christianity of the United States lies under fhe guilt 
of sustaining Slavery, with all its horrors, so far as the reli- 
gious organizations of the country hold a connection with 
it. 

The connection with Slavery maintained by the American 
Bible Society, The American Tract Society, and the Amer- 
ican Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, may be 
known by their ACTS. 

Any sustaining, approving, concurring connection with 
Slavery, involves deep guilt : it can in no sense be re- 
garded a sin of ignorance, to be winked at ; and all who 
sustain religious organizations in such a connection, are par- 
11* 



118 ATTITUDE OF RELIGIOUS BODIES 

takers in the guilt. Isaiah, lxi. 8. — I, the LORD, love 
judgment : I hate robbery for burnt-offering. 

We have here another cause for the low state of piety — 
for the diminishing moral power of benevolent enterprise in 
the American Churches. " Watchman, what of the night ? 
— if ye will inquire, inquire ye : — return, come." — Tsa. "xxi. 
11, 12. 

Many weep over this matter with prayerful solicitude. 

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions thus define their position : " The Board can sustain no 
relation to Slaverywhich implies approbation of the system, 
and as a Board can have no connection or sympathy with it. 
Without a change of views, it is quite certain that the Board 
can do nothing beyond this." 

Facts. This Board publicly solicit and knowingly receive 
the gains of slaveholding. 

They employ a financial agent for Maryland and Delaware 
as a part of his field. 

They have receiving agents at leading points in most of 
the slaveholding States. 

They send Dr. Scudder to the slave States to extend the 
Missionary spirit, and to increase Missionary contributions. 

They, as a Board, wholly refrain from declaring any- 
where, or in any direct form, that the system of American 
Slavery is wrong, and that it is a sin for man to hold his 
fellow-man as property. 

There are slaveholders and slaves in the Choctaw Mission 
Churches, which are under the control of the A. B. C. F. M. 

These facts furnish the explanation of the import of the 
disclaimer of the Board to which they adhere, as the official 
expression of their views. 

The Board further say : " So far as they are at present 
informed, they see no reason to charge the Missionaries 
among the Choctaws, or anywhere else, with either a viola- 
tion or neglect of duty :" that is, slaveholding as such, i6 not 
to be regarded or treated as any bar to full and consistent 
membership in the Christian Church. 

It was in testimony before the Board (Mr. Hotchkins, a 
Missionary among the Choctaws, the witness), that in one 
of the Mission Churches, about one-third of the members 



TOWARDS SLAVERY. 119 

are converted negro slaves, some of whose masters are also 
members of the same. 

N. B. The whole number of persons connected with the 
Missions of the Board, and sustained by its funds, is 494. 

The whole number received into the Mission ■ Churches 
under the patronage of the Board since its Missions com- 
menced, is reckoned to be 32,800. 

30,605 of this number have been received to the Churches 
in the Sandwich Islands, leaving only 2,195 as the aggregate 
received from the beginning into the Churches at ail the other 
stations. 

5,600 are reported as having been received in the year last 
reported : of these, 5,296 were received at the Sandwich 
Islands, leaving 304 the number received at all the other 
Mission's. 

The Sandwich Island Mission has been, more than any 
other, an anti-slavery Mission. Its great success directly 
followed its breach upon the existing system of feudal 
Slavery. 

Rev. Lorrin Andrews, a Missionary there, thus testifies : 
cc The Mission have published a history of the Sandwich 
Islands, which will probably be republished in the United 
States. That history will show that the Mission were 
obliged to stop in their progress and put down Slavery before 
they could go any farther. Though Slavery here was in its 
mildest form, much like the feudal system of the middle ages, 
yet so many things were at variance with the principles of 
the Gospel, that they had to be changed., On this change 
depended the safety and permanence of the nation. If it had 
not been effected, the nation would have lost its nationality 
before now." 

Here you have the test. " So many things were at var- 
iance with the principles of the gospel." That is, we can 
never do the Lord's work, while we approve or countenance 
the violation of his law. As Missionaries of the Cross, we 
cannot expect the smiles of him who was crucified for the 
Sins of the World, while our hands are in any way defiled 
by oppression. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord 
will not hear me. The Christian Church will not be permit- 
ted to make progress in the work of mercy to the Heathen, if 



120 ATTITUDE OF RELIGIOUS BODIES 

they make merchandize of their brethren , knowingly receive 
into the treasury of the Lord the price of blood, or hold com- 
munion with the unfruitful works of darkness. 

lt The piety of the Church must be elevated." 

But if the blind lead the blind, they will both fall. 

Ineffable reproach is brought upon the gospel, and upon 
the Christian name, by the failure, the habitual and utter 
failure, of Christians to act up to their holy principles: by 
their recreant neglect, their covenant-breaking refusal to do 
for the country what it needs, and what it must have from 
Christian influence, to secure its permanent prosperity in 
the triumphs of justice, and in the perpetuity of a righteous 
legislation. 

The Church claims to be regarded as the guide of the nation 
on the subject of morals and religion ; and she is very sensi- 
tive when her maxims are doubted, her authority questioned, 
and her teachings dissected and exposed. Pray then let her 
act worthy her name and the principles she avows. Let the 
Church guide the Public safely. Let her utter the truth, 
and the whole truth, and call the Nation to sit down under 
its shade, and eat freely and continuously its fruit, which 
shall impart life, vigor and unfading youth to the body politic, 
civil and ecclesiastical. In this case the Church would be indeed 
a nursing mother to the community, and in its midst, comely 
as Jerusalem, and terrible as an army with banners, and a 
glory among men. 

But how is she shorn of her strength and beauty, when she 
practically denies her own principles ; when in her indivi- 
dual members, primary assemblies, judicatories, and various 
organizations, she ceases to be a reprover of sin — connives at 
known abominations, — extends fellowship to those who blot 
out inalienable rights and trade in human flesh : when she 
thus practically and habitually denies and disregards the 
fundamental principles of justice, law and reason ? Such a 
Church must herself be reformed before she can go successful- 
ly forward in the reformation of others. 

Justice and mercy are the essential elements in Christian- 
ity. And when the 'practice of those who profess Chris- 
tianity, is, as a matter of fact, a denial, or even the habitual 
neglect of justice and mercy, it is utterly impossible that men 



TOWARDS SLAVERY. 121 

of sense and reflection should have confidence in those 
whose profession and practice are so widely and essentially 
at variance. Such professors, both in their individual and 
Church capacity, must eventually become, in the public es- 
timation, objects, first of distrust — then of dislike — then of 
abhorrence. 

A Church whose practices abrogate the fundamental prin- 
ciples of justice, can continue her hold upon the community 
only as she favors and sustains selfish combinations ; winks 
at the vices of designing and aspiring men, and contributes 
to the strength of political influences which create and en- 
force unrighteous and oppressive enactments, and make the 
general good subserve the interests of the few. Such a 
Church yields to a meretricious connection with the State — 
and becomes the tool of an odious aristocracy : a position 
forbidden not only by the spirit, but by every sentiment of a 
pure Christianity : and a connection in which she betrays her 
divine Lord for pelf, and panders to tyranny, instead of act- 
ing as the friend of the poor, the defender of the Truth, and 
the guardian of human rights. 

How far is the professing Church in the United States thus 
connected ? — and will she not, at no distant period, in the 
course she has long pursued, cease to be acknowledged as 
the true Christian Church ? — are the Questions of absorbing 
interest, now before the American public. Is the gold 
becoming dim ? Is the most fine gold changing into alloy ? 



CHAPTER VII. 
FAITHFUL DEALING— TRUE POSITION. 

SEC. I. — CHRISTIANS SHOULD HAVE CONFIDENCE IN EACH 
OTHER AND THE CONFIDENCE OF THE WORLD. 

In circumstances so peculiarly critical and responsible as 
those in which Christians in the United States now- are, a 
strong and continuous effort should be made to maintain con- 
fidence in each other. That many of our Churches and Re- 
ligious Bodies, as such, are losing the confidence of non- 
professors, is an unquestionable fact. The movements of 
these organizations, their acts and omissions, are well known, 
and have created very extensively a deep sensation. The 
good sense of all reflecting men, in the Church, and out of it, 
cannot but teach them, that the Church of Christ should be 
known as certainly, always and in all circumstances, approv- 
ing what Christ approves, and condemning what Christ con- 
demns ; and that all their acts should be paternal, kind, con- 
ciliatory, and invariably in palpable accordance with truth, 
justice and mercy. 

SEC. II. — A COMPLAINT OF SLANDER ANSWERED. 

It is complained that our Churches and Religious Bodies 
are slandered: — that British Christians misunderstand our 
peculiar relations — that American Christians are belied when 
it is said of them that they sustain iniquity. 

In regard to this whole matter let facts testify. 

1. Ministers of the Gospel, and other Church members, 
give their vote to elevate a Duellist to a civil office. 

2. They vote for a Slaveholder. 

3. With the means of knowing the crimes, and the guilt, 
and desolations, involved in and inseparable from the system 



COMPLAINT OF SLANDER ANSWERED. 123 

of American Slavery, the testimony of the Pulpit and the 
Churches against the system is faint and feeble, and the ma- 
jority of them take no decided action against it. 

4. Slaveholders are received to fellowship in the pulpit, 
and at the Lord's Table. 

5. The mass of Christians fall in with a corrupt public 
sentiment, in fostering and supporting w T ar. 

Such facts clearly indicate the moral sense of the Churches. 

It would be regarded an insufferable outrage if persons 
who steal money were tolerated in the Church — and if Min- 
isters who rob on the highway should be invited into the 
pulpit to preach, • But both theft and robbery are insepara- 
ble from Slavery, and under the system they are openly and 
unceasingly maintained, and at the same time slaveholders 
are, in the majority of the Churches in the United States, 
countenanced and employed as preachers, and acknowledged 
as accredited communicants. It is this fact which astonishes 
Christians and the philanthropists of Europe, and induces 
them to ask, can it be that Christians and Christian Minis- 
ters, at this period of the world, can be slaveholders, or in 
any way countenance the system ? and if they do these 
things, can they be really pious men ? 

But with American Christians it is deemed not only abu- 
sive but even a crime, to represent the slaveholder as guilty 
of robbery or theft : and they w T ill turn upon those who do 
this in great wrath, w T hile they use kind words of affection 
and fellowship towards the men who actually deprive the 
slave of his manhood, and withhold from him his dues, 
and sell him as they sell a brute. 

How has it come about among us, that those who sanc- 
tion the stealing of men are held in good repute, while steal- 
ers of money are discarded, and that theft and robbery cease 
to be a crime worthy of notice and reprobation if the sufferer 
be black ? 

How is it that so much apathy exists in reference to the 
extraordinary condition of Thompson, Work, Burr, Walker, 
and Torrey, and others, from the free North, punished under 
the form of law ; and at the same time, not one of them, in 
fact, guilty of any act recognized as an offence or crime under 
those laws which are superior to the enactments of States, 



124 COMPLAINT OF SLANDER ANSWERED. 

because they are founded on the fundamental rights of all 
mankind, and arise from the inherent principles of natural 
justice ? Within the purview of these principles it is not a 
crime for a person enslaved to gain his liberty — nor a crime 
to counsel the enslaved to secure his liberty, and to furnish 
him with the means of doing it. Where are the rights of 
an American citizen if he is arraigned, put in irons, in the 
pillory, branded with a hot iron, and doomed to the peniten- 
tiary among felons, for an act of justice and mercy ? A 
Christian people, tolerating and sustaining enactments op- 
posed to natural justice and the law of God ! — sympathising 
with the oppressor ! 

It is the revolting wonder in our Republic, that Christians 
should not only refrain from the most pointed rebuke and 
condemnation of human chattelship ; but that they should 
defend it, and have fellowship with those who sustain it. 

Flagrant injustice, under the garb of Christianity, is beyond 
the reach of apology. This injustice is seen and known to 
be attached to Christians and Churches who are sustaining 
the American slave system ; and who can be surprised that 
a discerning and justice-loving public should turn away from 
such Churches and Christians with disgust, and that many 
should regard Christianity itself as a system inadequate to 
the wants of mankind ? 

When Man is made a thing, the injustice is so palpable, 
so flagrant, that it is seen and felt at the instant that the fact 
is revealed. Every lover of justice will of course raise the 
cry of condemnation. But thousands of professed Christians 
commit this very crime: hundreds of Ministers are guilty 
of it. 

Is it then slander to represent the Churches in the United 
States as unfaithful, and egregiously wicked in their treat- 
ment of the American slave system ? Is it traitorous to 
tell them that, in the course they pursue in reference to this 
and other giant public sins, they must lose the public confi- 
dence, and utterly fail to discharge their high and solemn 
duties to a perishing world ? 

Verily, if the moral sense of the ministry were not stupi- 
fied, the pulpits of the land would blaze and thunder against 
the system of American slavery, duelling, licentiousness, 



COMPLAINT OF SLANDER ANSWERED. 125 

war, and other sins, and their occupants prefer stripes and 
death in any form, rather than incur the guilt of infidelity, 
when truth, justice and mercy are victims upon the altar. 

If the moral sense of the Churches were not stupiiied, they 
would pour their joint testimony and rebuke in a contin- 
uous burning torrent upon the ear and the conscience of the 
oppressor. 

This, and nothing short of this, is what the philanthropist 
demands of the Church and her Ministers, and he will not, 
he cannot, have confidence in them if they fail to give it 

This, and nothing short of this, is demanded by the public 
sentiment of Christendom, of Christians in the United States, 
that they call loudly and without ceasing for Justice, Jus- 
tice, in the name of the God of Justice ; and that they pro- 
secute, with increasing faith and strengthening energy, the 
proper measures for this end, till the oppressor shall cease 
from his crime, and the oppressed be released from his 
bondage. 

This is the only course by which Christians in the United 
States, as a body, can throw off' from themselves the heavy 
but just charge of hypocrisy, and cleanse out from their 
Christian character the deep stain burned into it by the foul, 
revolting injustice and cruelties so long practised, either 
by themselves directly, or by their consent or connivance, 
upon our colored brethren and fellow-citizens. 

There can be but one opinion, except with those who in 
some way are committed to the wrong, in reference to the 
attitude which all the religious bodies in the United States 
should take towards the public sins in this nation— that is 5 
the attitude of frank, open, unqualified, strong, unretracted 
condemnation ; the attitude of utter exemption from even the 
appearance of holding a connection with them, or giving 
them countenance. 

The American Bible Society nobly resolves to furnish 
every family, and even every reader, in the land with a copy 
of the Scriptures, and calls upon the people to enable them to 
redeem the blessed pledge. 

But if their agents be known to give a copy to the slave — 
a member of the Church, thirsting for the water of life — and 
to encourage him to read, he is arrested as a criminal ! 
12 



126 COMPLAINT OF SLANDER ANSWERED. 

By civil enactment nearly one-sixth of the whole people 
are forbidden to read the Bible. 

Who will say that the Bible Society is right if she keep 
silence in reference to such enactments ? 

Are religious bodies soulless, mere abstractions, and with 
no fear of God before their eyes, because they act in a cor- 
porate capacity ? 

And in respect to the colleges, theological seminaries, fe- 
male seminaries, public schools, and schools of all kinds in 
the land, philanthropy, Reason, Patriotism, Religion, Jus- 
tice, demand that pupils from all classes shall be admitted, 
irrespective of color ; and if industrious and law-abiding, that 
they be made welcome, receive full and equal protection, and 
enjoy, in all points, the same and equal privileges. 

If there be any schools of any grade which do not proffer 
and secure all this, of such it cannot be strictly and truly 
said that their doors are open for all classes, and that colored 
persons are freely and cheerfully admitted. 

Neither can it in truth be said that our public schools are 
open for the reception of people of all classes, so long as 
young women of* color are not readily admitted and fully 
protected in our female seminaries. 

To exclude one-sixth of all the females in the United 
States from educational privileges is alike anti-republican 
and anti-Christian j and makes all pretensions of a desire to 
elevate our colored people, and to restore to them their long- 
denied rights, hollow-hearted and disgusting. 

No one course of action by Christians and religious bodies 
in the United States strikes so broadly and deeply into the 
elements of our whole character as a people, and so univer- 
sally affects our essential interests, as that which they have 
long pursued and now follow towards the colored portion of 
our fellow-citizens and brethren. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

INFLUENCE OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT 
ON THE STATE. 

SEC. I. — CIVIL FREEDOM THE RESULT OF RELIGIOUS FREE- 
DOM. 

The subject of Church government is one of great moment, 
affecting deeply and widely the civil, political and religious 
rights and interests of mankind. Religion has, in every na- 
tion, given the shape and character to its civil and political 
institutions. The religion of the men who govern the na- 
tion is the controlling religion of that nation, and the politi- 
cal character of the government will he like the moral cha- 
racter of this religion. We see all this verified both among 
heathen and Christian nations. 

All the civil governments in Christendom feel a powerful, 
if not a controlling influence, from the government of the 
Church within its limits. 

Be it marked and remembered that, if the elements in the 
government of the Church are at variance with the elements 
of the civil government, public sentiment, ever the creature 
of the current religion of the country, will (silently, it may 
be, but surely) carry the influence of the elements ecclesiasti- 
cal against and over the influence of the elements civil ; and 
the community, in their views of civil liberty, will become 
permanent at, or will rise no higher than, the point marked 
by the Church. So long as man is a religious being will 
this be the case. 

Such considerations impart a paramount interest to the 
subject of Church government. And no people more need 
to look to this subject with a candid, wakeful, and tireless 
interest, than the citizens of this Republic. 

The spirit of freedom looks out upon us through the letter 



128 CONGREGATIONALISM SCRIPTURAL. 

of our National and State Constitutions ; but it becomes a 
living reality no farther than this spirit rinds a practical de- 
velopment among the Churches in the land. When you see 
freedom of speech quelled in the legislative assemblies of the 
country, you will find that this encroachment upon civil 
rights has been preceded by the curtailment of freedom of 
speech hi the Churches. Persecution in the State has come 
up in the wake of persecution in the Church. Political 
bodies do not trample upon the public interest, till religious 
bodies have sacrificed inalienable rights in the vestibule of 
their own temples, and at the altars of their own religion. 

Sagacious statesmen and political demagogues are well 
apprised of these facts, and make their moves accordingly : 
and never move with a lighter heart and a quicker step, than 
when they perceive the leading influences in the Church to 
be more conservative than aggressive in the application of 
their avowed principles. 

SEC. II. — CONGREGATIONALISM SCRIPTURAL. 

The position is taken in the preceding pages, that the only 
mode of Church government prescribed and taught in the 
New Testament, is Congregational. 

This mode, it is believed, happily accords with the spirit, 
enters into the essence, and accomplishes the designs of 
Church organization. 

The Lord Jesus Christ speaks authoritatively on this point 
in the 18th of Matthew. Then he adds, where iwo or three 
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of 
them. That is, wherever the smallest number of Christians 
can be found, there 1 recognize the elements of a true Church. 
This is His act of Church organization. The number is 
always a matter of contingency, and cannot at all affect the 
nature or the essence of the' organization. 

Now what is Church organization on our part ? It is 
simply this : the public recognition of each other as disciples 
of Christ, by two or more brethren joining hands in covenant 
in the name of the Lord, and freely and mutually acknow- 
ledging the obligations already resting upon them as disci- 
ples. This done, they are to all intents and purposes a 
Christian Church, and embody all the elements and the es- 



EDUCATES THE PEOPLE. 129 

sential circumstances of a valid and regular Church organi- 
zation, in accordance with the views and practice of Peter, 
Paul, and James : the same so highly valued and contended 
for by John Bunyan, and the early English Independents 
and Baptists. 

In this organization you have Christian principle, Chris- 
tian practice, Christian character, Christian resolutions, 
Christian covenant, Christian labor, and the promised pres- 
ence of Christ. And what more or else is needed to impart 
validity and authority to a Christian Church ? 

What of any possible value can be added by the Pope, or 
the Bishop, or the Theological Faculty, or the General Con- 
ference, or the General Assembly, or the Synod, or the Pres- 
bytery, or the Association, or the Council ? And it seems 
idle to attempt to sustain any other mode or system of 
Church government by a reference to parchments, historical 
records, the Fathers, and the Apostolic succession. 

The object of Church organization is, to reform and re- 
claim a fallen race. Christians and all such are to be recog- 
nized as co-workers, in covenant vows, in this enterprise. 
The very nature and essence of this covenant recognition or 
organization, consist in the natural expression of their mu- 
tual confidence in each other as fellow laborers, and their 
solemn and honest and earnest mutual pledges thus to labor. 
Beyond doubt these are the elements and all the essentials of 
Church organization ; and there seems to be no place for a 
scruple as to the order and form of the organization, unless 
you admit a foreign element, selfishness, to prick up the 
members in the unholy strife who shall be the greatest 

SEC. III. — EDUCATES THE PEOPLE. 

It is the marked excellency of Congregationalism, and true 
to an extent confessedly unknown under any other form of 
Church government, that it educates the PEOPLE. It scru- 
pulously and minutely maintains the rights of each and of 
all in accordance with the fundamental fact that the assem- 
bled brotherhood are the only safe depositary of power among 
Christians, and thus rears the citizens in the abiding attach- 
ment to republican and democratic principles. 
* 12* 



130 EDUCATES THE PEOPLE. 

New England has been the seat and source of Congrega- 
tionalism in this country ; and its wonderful history furnishes 
the most incontestible and the richest proof of the blessings 
the people have themselves enjoyed and conferred upon oth- 
ers under this mode of Church government. 

In the first hundred years of its existence, very nearly all 
the Christians united in Congregational Churches. In 1700 
there were in all the New England States then settled 900 
Episcopalians, of whom 185 were communicants. There 
were no Methodists, and with the exception of Rhode Island, 
very few Baptists : not a single Church of this denomination 
existed in Connecticut, and but two or three in Massachu- 
setts. At the same time there were 120 Congregational 
Churches in New England, besides 30 churches composed of 
Indians. These Churches were the pioneers, who laid the 
foundation and sketched the course of action for succeeding 
ages ; and the fact is undeniable that New England is what 
she is, chiefly from the influence of the Congregationalists 
and Congregational principles. 

The Baptists, who have greatly multiplied since and are 
now spread over the whole land, universally adopt the Con- 
gregational form of government. 

From their beginning the Congregationalists were assidu- 
ous in training their children in the study of the Scriptures. 
To this end all classes in the Christian communities had the 
means of a good common education. They wished their 
children to be well instructed in fundamental truth, because 
they wished them to be saved. 

Congregationalists stand specially prominent among those 
who have largely and continuously contributed for the en- 
dowment of common schools, academies, colleges, and theo- 
logical seminaries ; and the happy results of this liberality 
have been felt in every section of the country. 

In no community is knowledge so generally diffused as in 
New England: and none of equal numbers has sent out so 
many men to bless their country and the world by their tal- 
ents, their learning and their piety. To the policy of the 
Congregational Churches, securing a thorough and general 
education of the PEOPLE, more than to any other instru- 
mentality, is this honorable and marked pre-eminence to be 
ascribed. 



poster's free inquiry. 131 

SEC. IV. — CONDUCIVE TO VITAL GODLINESS. 

Pure Congregationalism is the most efficient organization 
for the promotion and spread of a spiritual religion. Facts, 
in the long period since its revival, and distinct organization, 
among the Puritans of England, most impressively confirm 
the truth of this position ; which is here presented, not to 
the disparagement of other denominations ; nor even to inti- 
mate that spiritual religion is not promoted under other forms 
of Church polity, but that it may be recorded and noted to 
what a marked extent and degree the Divine Saviour has 
owned and blessed his disciples in the maintenance of that 
simple Church organization he gave in the eighteenth chap- 
ter of Matthew, 

From the first, these Churches have been signalized by 
frequent and powerful revivals of Religion. Indeed, New 
England was born in a Revival, and the chastened spirit of 
holy love which prayed her into being, has at no time for- 
saken her, but has been cherished and fostered, by effusions 
of the Holy Ghost, to the present period. 

In the benevolent operations of this country since the com- 
mencement of the present century, Congregationalists have 
taken the lead. Deduct from the aggregate of money con- 
tributed in the United States for institutions of learning and 
for missionary and other objects of benevolence and charity, 
the amount given by those who sustain the Congregational 
polity of Church government, and the result will tell 
strongly and loudly. Mark the amount given for these pur- 
poses in the single State of Massachusetts, and study well 
the instructive and significant appeal of arithmetical figures, 
pointing to the instrumentalities by which the result has been 
affected. 

SEC V. — FOSTERS FREE INQUIRY AND INDEPENDENCE OF 

THOUGHT. 

Robinson, in his farewell Sermon to the Pilgrims before 
their departure for America, uttered the following sentiments, 
which should be engraven on every Christian's heart, and em- 
blazoned through Christendom from age to age. " Brethren, 
we are now quickly to depart from one another, and whether 



132 LIBERAL. 

I may ever live too see your faces on earth any more, the 
God of Heaven only knows : but whether the Lord has ap- 
pointed that or no, I charge you before God, and his blessed 
Angels, that you follow me, no farther than you have seen 
me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. If God reveal anything 
to you, by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive 
it, as ever you were to receive any truth, by my ministry ; 
for I am verily persuaded, I am very confident the Lord has 
more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. I cannot 
sufficiently bewail the condition of the Churches who are 
come to a period in religion, and will go at present no further 
than the instruments of their reformation. The Lutherans 
cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw — whatever 
part of his good will our God has revealed to Calvin, they 
will rather die than embrace it ; and Calvinists, you see, stick 
fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet 
saw not all things. 

" This is a misery much to be lamented ; for though they 
were burning and shining lights in their times, yet they pene- 
trated not into the whole counsel of God : and were they 
now living, would be as willing to embrace further light, as 
that which they first received. I beseech you be ready to 
receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the 
written word of God." 

SEC. VI. — LIBERAL. 

In 1641 the Plymouth colony passed an ordinance in 
these words, viz. : No injunction shall be put upon any 
Church or Church member as to doctrine, worship or disci- 
pline, whether for substance or circumstance, beside the 
command of the Bible. 

The old South Church in Boston, formed 1669, has in her 
covenant the following article, viz. : We do hereby cove- 
nant and promise to hold, promote and maintain fellowship 
and communion with all the Churches of the, saints, in all 
those holy ways of order, appointed between them by our 
Lord Jesus, to the utmost, especially with those among 
whom the Lord hath sent us, that the Lord may be one, and 
his name one, in all these Churches, throughout all genera- 
tions, to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus. 



CIVIL LIBERTY 



133 



Hume says of them in his history, " It is the true glory of 
the Independents, that of all Christian sects, it was the first 
which, during its prosperity, as well as its adversity, al- 
ways adopted the principle of toleration." 

Congregationalists in this country have, as a matter of 
habit, i'reely contributed money and influence in aid of other 
denominations, thus honoring their Church polity, which is 
pre-eminently anti- sectarian. Under what was originally in- 
tended to be the fostering wing of the plan of union they 
have added' to the Presbyterians hundreds of Churches and 
many thousands of communicants ; and her children have 
gone out in scores for many years to swell the numbers of 
Baptists and Methodists. Indeed, if the pure Congregational 
polity were followed, both in the spirit and in the letter, if 
none but those who give evidence of Christian character, 
were received into the Church, and all such were fellowshiped 
in all Christian duty and practice, the spirit of sect would be 
annihilated, and a sectarian Church would find no foothold 
among the followers of the Lamb of God. It is only by a 
return to the simple principles of this Heaven -derived polity, 
that the flood-tide of ills and curses which from the foun- 
tains of sectarian bigotry has set in upon the souls of men 
and overwhelmed their dearest earthly interests, can be 
stayed. 

SEC. VII. — FOSTERS THE SPIRIT OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

It is in the organization of a Congregational Church and in 
that only, that the perfect idea of civil and religious liberty 
has been realized. 

The Puritans followed the Apostles in their Church polity, 
building on the basis of entire independence and perfect 
equality of rights. In this simple and most efficient organiza- 
tion they saw the germ of perfect civil liberty ; and twice 
they saved the British Constitution from being crushed by 
the usurpations of the Stuarts. Hume, who hated both 
their character and the noble principles from which it germi- 
nated, is compelled to admit, that what of liberty breathes in 
that Constitution is to be ascribed to the influence of the Pu- 
ritans. He says, " So absolute, indeed, was the authority of 



134 REPUBLICANISM AND DEMOCRACY, 

the crown, that the precious spark of liberty had been kin- 
dled and was preserved by the Puritans ; and it was to this 
sect whose principles appear so frivolous, and habits so ridi- 
culous, that the English owe the whole freedom of their Con- 
stitution." On a subsequent page he further says, " It was 
only during the next generation that the noble principles of 
liberty took root and spreading themselves under the shelter 
of Puritanical absurdities, became fashionable among the 
people." 

SEC. VIII. — REPUBLICANISM AND DEMOCRACY — JURY TRIAL. 

The Pilgrims, before they landed from the May Flower 
which bore them across the Atlantic, formed themselves into 
a civil body politic on the fundamental principle that the ma- 
jority should govern, and thus made paramount the bold idea 
of a free elective government. 

The trial by jury, a basis principle in the elements of 
civil liberty, is derived from the appointment of Christ in the 
1 8th of Matthew. The jury trial in civil governments is 
Congregationalism. All legitimate ecclesiastical courts are a 
trial by the jury of the PEOPLE. 

Of the 500,000 inhabitants in New England in 1760, 
440,000 were Congregationalists. At the commencement of 
the revolutionary struggle, this same New England was the 
seat of liberty principles and liberty measures. The com- 
missioners of King Charles reported of Massachusetts — 
" their way of government is Commonwealth-like ; their 
way of worship is rude and called Congregational." Lord 
Clarendon declared that the colonies of New England were 
already hardened into republics. From this form of Church 
government have been derived the peculiarly free and excel- 
lent forms of State Governments in the northern States. 

This spirit of Republicanism and Democracy, and from the 
same source, early showed itself in Virginia. " Several 
years before the American Revolution, there was, near the 
house of Thomas Jefferson, in Virginia, a Church which was 
governed on Congregational principles, and whose monthly 
meetings he often attended. Being asked how he was 
pleased with the Church government, he replied that it had 
struck him with great force, and had interested him very 



JURY TRIAL. 135 

much ; that he had considered it the only form of pure De- 
mocracy that then existed in the world ; and had concluded 
that it would be the best plan of government for the Ameri- 
can colonies." Thus this apostle of Democracy took ele- 
mentary lessons on politics from a Congregational Church. 

A writer in the London Quarterly Review says, " It soon 
became apparent, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that the 
Puritans tended naturally towards Republicanism ; for cer- 
tain it is, that Monarchy and Episcopacy, the throne and the 
altar, are much more nearly connected than writers of bad 
faith or little reflection have sought to persuade mankind. 
Besides this insensible but natural inclination towards De- 
mocracy, wkich arises from the principles of a popular Church 
government, there was another cause why the current should 
set in that direction ; it was only under commonwealths that 
the Puritans saw their beloved discipline flourish." 

No people are fit to manage their civil affairs, unless they 
are intelligent and virtuous. No body of men are qualified 
to conduct the concerns of the Church who are not intelli- 
gent and pious. Throw upon them the responsibility of 
this management, and you press them with the strongest mo- 
tive to acquire knowledge. Hence, those who depend upon 
others to act for them can never become a thinking, reading, 
independent people. 

The fact that the Congregational polity places all Church 
power in the hands of the brethren of the Church, happily 
diminishes motives to pride and worldly ambition ; withholds 
the means of lordly usurpation ; furnishes the happiest in- 
centives to Ministers to diligence, activity and holy living ; 
contributes powerfully to the promotion of piety among 
the members, and provides the greatest possible safeguard 
against the inroads of heresy, 

The cither forms of Church government, which have ex- 
tensively prevailed, are Episcopacy — Roman, English and 
American ; and Presbyterianism. The Methodists in the 
United States have generally adopted the Episcopacy. 

Of these forms of Church polity no remark is here made, 
other than that in their essential elements, and in most, if 
not all, their modifications, they are anti-Republican and 
anti-Democratic. 



136 REPUBLICANISM AND DEMOCRACY. 

In their civil and political arrangements and polity, the 
people, in the sovereignties of the respective States, and in 
the general government, are strictly Republicans ; and in the 
elective franchise approach nearly to a realization of a pure 
Democracy. 

But in their religious polity, these same lovers of Repub- 
licanism and sticklers for Democracy, turn away from the 
delightful vision of Liberty and Equality, and practically 
discard the principle that the sovereign power is lodged with 
the PEOPLE ; and more than half of them settle down, 
without scruple, as Churches, or in connection with Churches, 
under an aristocracy and a monarchy. 

In the English Episcopacy the Archbishop ranks, in 
ecclesiastical dignity, next to the King, and is supreme in 
his province. Each Bishop is sole judge, in his own court, 
of ail ecclesiastical offences. 

The nature of our government does not admit of a Su- 
preme Head of the Church, and in this respect American 
Episcopacy is incomplete. There is a yearly convention of 
the clergy and laymen of each diocese, and a triennial con- 
vention composed of delegates from the several dioceses; but 
the House of Bishops, who meet by themselves, have the 
power of a full veto upon the proceedings of the other 
house. 

The government of the Methodist Episcopal Church is 
strictly episcopal. The spiritual and temporal business 
of this Church, is under the general supervision of six 
Bishops, who have the control and direction of more than 
two thousand travelling preachers, and numerous local 
preachers. 

No lay delegates are admitted to sit in the yearly or 
general conference ; and yet these bodies, with the Bishops, 
have the control and government of the entire Methodist 
Church. With the Bishops, the presiding Elders, and the 
travelling preachers, lies the power to control everything. 

John VVesley said of himself and his Methodist brethren, 
we are no republicans. Richard Watson, a standard writer 
among the Methodists, says, a popular form of Church gov- 
ernment could only be tolerable in very small, isolated 
societies, and that in the times of their greatest simplicity 



THE PEOPLE ASLEEP. 137 

and love. Again, Mr. Wesley says, as long as I live, the 
people shall have no share in choosing either stewards or 
leaders among the Methodists. 

Among Presbyterians the government is lodged with a 
bench of Eiders, with the right of appeal to the Presbytery, 
Synod, and General Assembly, each of which is a consti- 
tuted court of review and control — the final decision, lying 
in the General Assembly. 

By this sketch may be seen the essential elements of 
church polity in these denominations of Christians, and that 
it is anti-republican and anti -democratic ; and also that be- 
tween them and Congregationalism, there is a fundamental 
difference. 

SEC. IX. — THE PEOPLE ASLEEP OVER THEIR DANGERS. 

This subject requires the candid but critical investigation 
of the Statesman, the Philanthropist, the Moralist, and the 
Christian. This world has not yet witnessed the best de- 
velopments of the fundamental principles of righteousness, 
and the full results of a pure Christianity. That the gospel 
is adapted to the wants of men, and a perfect remedy for the 
ills of public as well as private life, is a truth of which its 
intelligent friends feel assured, and which is yet to be illus- 
trated and confirmed by a most blessed and glorious realiza- 
tion in the domestic circle, in all the departments of busi- 
ness, in the civil and political arrangements of the people, 
and in the whole economy of religious and Church action and 
experience. And whether the State can permanently enjoy 
the blessings of a free government, all the rights of all the 
people being protected and secured, while the polity of the 
Church is, in theory and practice, at variance with the basis 
principle of all Republicanism and Democracy, is a problem 
now in process of solution in this nation ; and urged upon 
its consideration in circumstances fearfully ominous. 

In the experiment thus far, Liberty has been the losei: 
Our civil government does not protect the persons and rights 
of its citizens. Churches under all the forms of government 
have sustained the most vile, the very worst kind of oppres- 
sion. Men of solemn and high professions of piety, make 
merchandise of their brethren. The great portion of Church 
13 



138 THE PEOPLE ASLEEP 

members in the land have practically declared, at the ballot- 
box, their deliberate disregard of the Divine injunction, He 
that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. 
And it is with the deepest anxiety that men who abide by the 
right and the true, mark the rapid and the extraordinary 
developments of character now in progress in this Republic, 
and wait for the result. As a nation, we are sporting on the 
crust of a heaving volcano. 

In a sense and to an extent not known in any other na- 
tion, does it lie with the Churches to put forth a redeeming 
influence. Not by a non-committal, mere conservative, or 
compromising policy— a course falsely termed prudent : but 
by a prompt espousal, a wise advocacy, a fearless proclama- 
tion, and an inflexible persevering support of the fundamental 
principles of moral law, righteousness, and Christianity, 
in a practice which shall cover all business operations, civil 
and political duties, Church action, and personal intercourse ; 
thus creating and maintaining a correct conscience among 
themselves, and contributing effectually to the formation of 
a correct public sentiment ; the only course which will ren- 
der the pure principles of the Gospel paramount in the legis- 
lation of the nation, and the Republic of the United States 
permanent in its existence, and a blessing and a glory in the 
earth. 

"I shall count my country lost in the loss of primitive 
principles, and the primitive practices upon which it was first 
established," exclaimed the gifted Cotton, in the early period 
of New England. 

The excellency and the glory of the civil government of 
this country arise from the great fact, that there is so little 
of it. Its simple principles, mighty in strength, demand no- 
thing more than a simple legislation ; and this simple legis- 
lation, moderately ramified and extended, is enough for the 
people. The crippling, withering defect, and even crime 
against liberty, in our civil government, has been excess of 
legislation : the folly and faithlessness of our statesmen in 
office, that they have attempted too much, and distressed the 
country by its mass of regulations — and what of liberty re- 
mains is exposed to death by suffocation. 

In the Church the same difficulty exists. Too much legis* 



THE INNOCENT PUNISHED. 139 

lation, which converts the meetings of Christian brethren into 
scenes of profitless debate, and often of intrigue — excess of 
splendor, modes and tests : which smothers the spirit of piety 
and shuts the poor from the sanctuary. 

The remedy for the State must be sought in a thorough 
radical retrenchment — first, in its legislation ; then other 
things will follow. 

The remedy for the Church is to be found in reducing all 
her ecclesiastical legislation and discipline to the pure Repub- 
licanism taught and enjoined by the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
St. Paul, his inspired servant ; the broad Democracy embo- 
died and proclaimed in the second table of the Divine Law — 
and in faithfully practising the doctrines of the Gospel which 
she professes to honor and to love. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

New York, Dec. 10, 1844. 

THE INNOCENT IMPRISONED AND PUNISHED. 

The arrest and punishment of Thompson, Burr and Work, 
in Missouri ; Lane, in Virginia; Walker, in Florida; Torrey, 
in Maryland ; Fairbanks and Miss Webster, in Kentucky ; 
all, in respect to the grounds of complaint, perfectly guiltless 
of any crime against God or man, are marked events, develop- 
ing still farther the American Slave System, and the extra- 
ordinary and alarming apathy of the American people ; and 
cannot but greatly increase the disgust and horror of the 
philanthropists of Europe. It has now become a recorded 
fact, emblazoned in the court-room, heralded in our public 
prints, reported in all lands, that under the Republican Go- 
vernment of the United States of America a free-born citi- 
zen who shall counsel and aid the SLAVE to get his free- 
dom, is to be branded with a hot iron, consigned to the 
pillory, and immured in the State Prison— that the malignity 
of Slavery is permitted by the government, to lay her bloody 
hands on the friends of men and thrust them into her dun- 
geons, to suppress all action for her overthrow. 



140 ROTTEN TIMBERS IN 



ROTTEN TIMBERS IN THE NATIONAL SHIP. 

The appalling fact is no longer concealed, that there is an 
essential, radical defect in our National Government — that 
the Constitution of the United States, according to the popu- 
lar construction, annihilates its own noblest principles — that 
the friction in our political institutions, if not removed, must 
eventually, and at no distant period, wrap them in a quench- 
less conflagration ! All this is so, if we take the 'practical 
exposition of the Constitution by our statesmen as correct. 
Whether this exposition be not, in fact, practical treason 
against the spirit and designs of the Constitution, is a high 
and great question, on which the people are happily begin- 
ning to open their eyes in solemn and earnest inquiry — an 
inquiry which receives a new impulse from every fresh en- 
croachment ol the Slave power. 

Who can doubt, if the above named persons were prisoners 
in Algiers, that public sympathy w T ould flowin a deep current 
of accumulating indignation, and promptly demand redress ? 
Miss Webster, arrested and confined in jail at Lexington, 
Ky., on suspicion of breaking the slave laws of that State, 
is from a respectable family in Vermont, and a Teacher in 
a Seminary. How would Green Mountain gallantry, pat- 
riotism, and love of liberty, leap and bound and swell, if 
this young woman were imprisoned by the hand of barba- 
rians ? 

We are not a free people. Neither the Constitution, nor 
the administration of the Government under it, has secured to 
us protection in our personal rights. State laws most essen- 
tially conflict with the rights of citizens. The legislative ac- 
tion of the slaveholding Stales is a positive and progressive 
encroachment upon liberty within their own limits, aud in 
every .other State in the Union. Freedom of speech and of 
the press in favor of human rights is suppressed, in disre- 
gard of their own written Constitutions and the Constitution 
of the United States. In the midst of all this, there is a 
reckless indifference, an infatuated concurrence, a stupid 
neglect, a most selfish and faithless recreancy in civil courts, 
and with our Statesmen, who are bound by oath, as well as 
considerations of patriotism and integrity, to go deep and 



THE NATIONAL SHIP. 141 

thorough into an accurate exposition of the principles of 
human liberty, and to march steadily on to the attainment of 
the glorious ends and aims of our national Constitution : 
to be the leaders of the people and of the World in every 
department of freedom — the jealous guardians of private and 
public rights — civil and political architects to carry up the 
fair temple of Liberty in a beautiful symmetry and sublime 
proportions. Nothing short of this was the cherished an- 
ticipation of the founders of this Republic. Nothing less 
than this can correspond with the elements in its founda- 
tion. 

Instead of this, how deep, how overwhelming the disap- 
pointment, that as a nation, we have actually come to the 
question, whether it is practicable to prevent our splendid 
Federal Government from becoming a splendid wreck, whose 
fragments shall be tauntingly gathered up by Tyrants to 
strengthen the conviction they so much delight to magnify, 
that the people can never be qualified for self-government ! 

Whereas, if Jurists and Statesmen would but study the 
Bill of Rights in the State and National Constitutions, all of 
which express the essential elements of human liberty ; if 
they would honestly maintain that MAN, as man, is, at all 
times and everywhere, entitled to his freedom : if they would 
but- see even what is self-evident, that there is no elementary 
principle of right on which Slavery can repose, — if they would 
not practically deny the two great maxims which constitute 
the simple but immoveable foundation of all valid jurispru- 
dence, divine and human, viz. that authority is built upon 
Right, and that Reason is the soul of Law ; long ere this, 
would it have been inscribed upon the portals of our State 
and National legislation, and of our Courts of Justice, — "A 
Slave cannot breathe on the soil of the United States." 

As a matter of fact, the practical, and to a great extent, the 
avowed exposition of the Constitution has been against lib- 
erty and in favor of Slavery. The question of liberty has 
been compromised, and its overthrow guaranteed. Our sub- 
lime theories of human rights are steeped in the innocent 
blood of our citizens. Nor can we deceive the Nations by 
our lofty abstractions on the equality of man and his right to 
liberty and life, while our prisons groan with crimeless vie 



142 ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. 

tims : and, even the power of our government employed, on 
sea and land, to crush millions of its native-born citizens. 

Our government is based on the principle of human equali- 
ty, and the Statesman who will not study, understand and 
practise the principles of liberty, should be repudiated. 

The prevailing spirit of the age in which our Constitution 
was formed, was an anti-slavery spirit. This spirit was 
manifest in the leading minds by which the Constitution was 
projected, formed and adopted, not one of which entertained 
the expectation that Slavery would increase : and a compro- 
mise in favor of Slavery would have been repelled as ab- 
surd. 

The object of the anti-slavery movement is to throw light 
upon every part of this subject. Much has been already 
achieved. Statesmen, in the progress of events, will be 
compelled to examine this subject and to understand it. The 
People are, to a good extent, aroused, and acquiring light 
under the teachings of Divine Providence. 

Let the people cling to the Constitution ; give it the strict 
construction which shall make its provisions sustain its 
avowed and noble designs : amend it where it halts or is 
equivocal, in support of freedom. 

All correct and just expositions of this instrument, must 
fully and clearly accord with its designs, and the well-known 
spirit of its founders, and speak out intelligibly and strongly 
its inherent principles ; and under its broad shield it is the 
duty of the Community, the People in their primary assem- 
blies, the Citizen in his high investiture at the ballot box, 
to demand that the personal lights, all the rights, of each 
member of the community be uninfringed and respected. 

Let the fundamental principles of justice, reason, law, 
and liberty, the freedom which reigns and blesses in prac- 
tice, while it dazzles and attracts in theory, be thoroughly 
canvassed in our Colleges ; taught in our primary schools ; 
breathed in the nursery ; inculcated in the church ; spread 
out and enforced in the teachings of the pulpit, as an inte- 
gral portion of the Gospel of Salvation, and the common right 
of the human family. 

It is a false attitude, and a perversion not to be counte- 
nanced, to say that the doctrine of human rights, the princi- 



FREEDOM IN YOUTH. 143 

pies of liberty, and the essential elements of politics cannot 
safely and profitably be studied by the American youth, in 
the course of their education. The alphabet of freedom is 
never thoroughly understood when it is not learned in early 
life. 

Love of country is taught, ardently cherished, and lauded, 
as a high qualification in the youth. And when the fire of 
patriotism glows in their swelling hearts, they are regarded 
with delight as the hope of the country. Surely, then, should 
they understand the elements of civil liberty, who are enti- 
tled to it ; what are encroachments upon it, the means of 
defending it, and their deathless obligation to confer it upon 
all the inhabitants of the land. Their education is essen- 
tially defective if this training be omitted. And among the 
dark symptoms that are upon us, is the fact, that this train- 
ing is so extensively omitted in the Colleges and other Semi- 
naries in the land. 



